US embassy cable - 05ABIDJAN1864

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABIDJAN 001864 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2015 
TAGS: ECON, EFIN, PGOV, IV, Economy 
SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE INTENDS TO KEEP WEST AFRICAN CENTRAL 
BANK GOVERNORSHIP 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON Jim Wojtasiewicz, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
1.  (U) The term of Charles Konan Banny, the current governor 
of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), will 
expire in December 2005. The BCEAO is the common central bank 
for the eight West African Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU) 
countries.  The BCEAO governor is appointed by the Council of 
Ministers (comprised of the finance ministers from the WAEMU 
countries) for a renewable six-year period.  Since 1975, an 
Ivoirian national has held the governorship. 
 
2. (U) Cote d'Ivoire has no formal  entitlement to the 
governorship.  Indeed, the relevant language in the BCEAO 
statute says that the governor "must be chosen in a manner to 
call successively to this function a national of each member 
state of the union."  However, Cote d'Ivoire owns 30 percent 
of BCEAO's reserves, and accounts for some 40 percent of the 
region's GDP. 
 
3.  (U) This time, there appear to be some WAEMU countries 
that would like the next governor of the bank to be 
non-Ivoirian.  The names that have been publicly floated to 
succeed Banny include the Ivoirian finance minister and the 
Ivoirian representative to the African Development Bank, but 
also the IMF Africa Director, who is from Benin, and the 
currnt BCEAO vice governor, who is from Niger.  As yet, there 
is no official proposal to rotate the governorship away from 
Cote d'Ivoire, only informal communication between heads of 
states. 
 
4.  (U) However, President Gbagbo made clear that Cote 
d'Ivoire will not give up the BCEAO governorship, when he 
said at an October 18 commemoration ceremony for former 
Ivoirian President Houphouet-Boigny, "There are heads of 
state who wrote me to propose candidates for the post of 
BCEAO governor; we will not back-off one millimeter as the 
governor has always been and will be an Ivoirian national." 
 
4.  (C) Comment. Even though the non-Ivoirians whose names 
are being floated are from Benin and Niger, there is 
speculation here that Senegalese President Wade might be 
behind this move.  Cote d'Ivoire's long political crisis and 
relentless economic decline have already led to the transfer 
of many international business operations and personnel to 
Senegal, and Wade might see prying loose the BCEAO 
governorship as a logical next step in the decline of this 
country's economic leadership role in the region.  End 
Comment. 
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