By Irene Gaitirira
Published September 5, 2015
Africa loses more than 50 thousand million dollars each year through illicit flow of funds.
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Addressing the meeting of the Group of African Governors affiliated with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund known as the African Caucus in Angola August 27-28, 2015, Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, said, “Africa faces the great challenge of large volumes of capital leaving the continent illicitly – money that our continent needs to address the challenges of development.”
Mbeki, who now heads the High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows From Africa created by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, noted that Africa must stop this haemorrhage of funds it badly needs for its development through appropriate legislation, monitoring of the transactions of large commercial companies and interventions from institutions such as tax authorities, customs, central banks, financial intelligence units for combating money laundering, audit and anti-corruption authorities and the police.
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In a media release issued from Luanda through the Africa Press Organisation (APO) of Lausanne, Switzerland on behalf of the Ministry of Finance of Angola, Thabo Mbeki says that it is imperative to build the global architecture required for a focused offensive to put an end to these illicit outflows, within the framework of UN processes, in order to avoid a piecemeal approach to the problem and to enable supervision by an appropriate UN body.
