The Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, said the African continent is losing 80 billion US dollars to illicit financial flows annually.
The CDD discloses this in a statement to commemorate this year’s African Union Anti-corruption Day, which has as its theme ‘Strategies and Mechanisms for the Transparent Management of Covid-19 Funds.
According to the centre, due to corruption and mismanagement, some of the COVID-19 funds in Africa may have also become a source of illicit financial flows to countries in the North.
The centre, however, commended all African countries that have signed and ratified the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, AUCPCC, which was adopted in Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003 and came into force in 2006.
While lamenting that corruption is still an unnerving problem in Africa, the centre insisted that, “there is also an urgent need for member states to collectively take steps to diligently implement the recommendations of the Mbeki report on Illicit financial flows.
Recall that Mbeki report had claimed that the African continent suffers an annual loss of over $50 billion as of 2015 through illicit financial flows, IFFs.
“That figure has since risen to over $80 billion. It is pertinent to note that through corruption and mismanagement, some of the Covid-19 funds in Africa may have become a source of illicit financial flows to countries in the North.
“It also remains concerning that national and continental transparency initiative and efforts to stem the unbridled illicit financial flows from Africa to the Northern hemisphere has been embroiled in complex international politics,” the statement added.
The center noted that the problem of illicit financial flows cannot be solved post-haste, insisting that Africa must continue to stand together and push for a world order that discourages resource and trade price manipulation.
It added that, “corruption and illicit financial flows are twin evils which continue to constrain Africa’s progress and development. Regrettably, the utilization of Covid-19 funds has also become a major source of Africa’s corruption conundrum.
“The COVID-19 pandemic threw up enormous socio-economic challenges globally and particularly impacted the fragile economies in Africa”
“The pandemic exacerbated the prevailing challenges of the parlous health sector, raised inflation, caused acute food shortages and elevated conflicts and insecurity.
“African countries were challenged to deploy scarce resources from equally important sectors to procure medicines and medicaments to protect citizens from the deadly virus and purchase food to feed millions of persons thrown out of jobs due to the lockdowns occasioned by the rampaging pandemic”.
