Antoinette Sayeh, former Minister of Finance of Liberia, soon to be number 2 of the IMF

Antoinette Sayeh, here at the World Economic Forum in 2011. GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP

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Antoinette Sayeh, former Minister of Finance of Liberia and ex-director of Africa of the IMF is expected to join the pool of four deputy managing directors of the International Monetary Fund on March 16. Her name was proposed by the director of the institution, Kristalina Georgieva.

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If Antoinette Sayeh had to be summed up in one word, it would undoubtedly be "experience". At sixty-two, the Liberian doctor of international economic relations has spent most of her career in and at the helm of financial institutions. Seventeen years at the World Bank, eight years at the IMF, and about ten years at the Liberian Ministry of Finance, which she headed from 2006 to 2008 under the chairmanship of Ellen Johson Sirleaf.

It was notably she who cleared the Liberian debt, allowing her country to access the HIPC program, the initiative in favor of highly indebted countries. Reputed to be inflexible and efficient, she then joined the IMF, where she held the position of director of the Africa department . Antoinette Sayeh will hit the table in Mozambique when the IMF finds out the extent of the hidden debt.

It is also she who will manage the delicate financial crisis in Central Africa, after 2015 when the CEMAC countries, plagued by the oil crisis and mismanagement, were exhausted.

A supporter of financial orthodoxy, she also led a crusade in 2013 against subsidies by African states of certain commodities. Subsidies accused of straining the public finances of countries.

A rigorous manager, she will have the task of coordinating the IMF's policy towards African countries, at a delicate moment when debt levels are rising.

Antoinette Sayeh will be the second African to hold such a position. The first is called Alassane Ouattara, it was between 1994 and 1999.

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  • Liberia
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