ADB Denies Transfer of Head Office to Accra

The President of the African Development Bank (ADB) Omar Kabbaj, this week formally denied rumours about an impending transfer of the bank's head office from the Ivorian capital, Abidjan to Accra, in Ghana.

Speaking on State television in Abidjan, Kabbaj dismissed a local newspaper report that had intimated there were plans to move the ADB head office.

"The author and editorial staff of the newspaper in question never contacted the competent ADB authorities for their views before publishing the article," Kabbaj stated earlier in rejoinder following the news report.

In his television interview, though, he said that the ADB envisaged setting up a sort of fallback office to be used in case the head office became inaccessible for whatever reason.

The idea, he added, was still under study but the choice of the Ghanaian capital to host it had been confirmed.