The last president of the Inter-American Development Bank has not lasted two years in office. Mauricio Claver-Carone, head of Ibero-American policy in Donald Trump’s White House and considered a hawk in Cuba and Venezuela policy, was suddenly dismissed on Monday, September 26, after an investigation revealed that had a romantic relationship with his chief of staff, whom he brought to the bank from the White House, where they already worked together.
Claver-Carone had promised to lead the IDB for a single five-year term, in which he said he would focus on capital expansion and internal transparency reforms. He has not fulfilled any of both goals.
The IDB is headquartered in Washington, and was created in 1959 to finance economic, social, and institutional development projects and promote regional trade integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has 48 member countries, 22 of them non-borrowers, including the Europeans, the US, Israel and China, among others. In his brief tenure, Claver-Carone has charged that China has tried to turn the IDB into an instrument of influence in Ibero-America.
In April, the IDB’s executive board received an anonymous email accusing Claver-Carone of having had a relationship with a subordinate that violated the institution’s code of ethics, in addition to having embezzled funds.
That sparked an investigation that culminated last week with a report by the Davis Polk law firm, which found evidence that Claver-Carone had a relationship with her chief of staff, and authorized her several salary increases totaling 45% over the Base salary in your first year at the bank. The salary of that chief of staff amounted to almost half a million euros per year.
With that report, the bank’s board of directors, with 14 members, recommended to the assembly of governors the dismissal for improper conduct. This assembly of governors is made up of the 48 member countries of the IDB, including Spain and the United States. Finally, in an unprecedented decision this dismissed Claver-Carone this Monday.
The until now executive vice president, Reina Irene Mejía Chacón, now assumes the direction of the bank until the election of the new president.
It has been crucial in this dismissal that the White House, with Joe Biden at the helm, has joined those who have facilitated the dismissal of Claver-Carone. The dismissed man was the architect of the main policies of the White House towards Ibero-America during Trump’s mandate, including the maximum pressure campaign both with Cuba as with Venezuela.
Cuba is not a member of the bank, and in 2019 the IDB recognized Juan Guaidó’s envoy as the legitimate representative of Venezuela in that investment bank, banishing from him the emissaries of the Maduro regime.
In the investigation, Claver-Carone has refused to hand over the company mobile phone, and for this reason he has been accused of obstructing the investigations. your chief of staff She has refused to be interviewed.
In a statement that has since been deleted from the bank’s website, the former director said: “It is the first time in the history of any multilateral development bank that this kind of process has taken place, where an elected leader has been object of an arbitrary investigation without any formal complaint within the administrative rules of the organization, and which was initiated on the basis of anonymous and unsubstantiated complaints. It’s unprecedented.”
Claver-Carone, born in Miami 47 years ago and raised in Spain, came to the bank with controversy, as he was the first of its presidents from outside Ibero-America in its six decades of history, and thus breaking a tradition.
He was appointed by Trump to the position, and achieved the support of countries such as Brazil or Colombia, both governed by the right at the time. 31% of the members of the assembly of governors abstained then, including the representatives of Spain. Argentina, in the hands of Kirchnerism again, openly campaigned against it.
The dismissed has announced that will report to the bank for wrongful dismissal.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism