Binyam Tamene
17 October 2008
Addis Ababa — In an International Conference on: Institutions, Culture and Corruption in Africa, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said corruption cost most African countries over 20 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Despite the conference's "attempt to measure corruption has been problematic even in conventional measurements and instruments", Director of UNECA's governance and public administration division, Okey Onyejekwe, said adding that in some countries the figure could go up to 30 percent.
"In most African countries corruption is estimated to represent between 20 and 30 percent of the GDP, that is inconceivably large," said the director, briefing journalists after conclusion of the three-day meeting that calls for Africans to take lead in discourse on the problem in Africa.
Organized by the ECA and CODESRIA, the meeting brought together scholars, policy makers, practitioners, and civil society leaders, from and outside Africa, as well as regional and international organizations, to deliberate on the issue.
Okey Onyejekw, however stressed the issue of corruption has no cultural dimension to corruption in Africa, as it is also demonstrated in other cultures. He said resource scarcity makes its consequences terrible in Africa.
Supporting the director's view, the renowned pan African activist Dr. Tajudeen Abdulraheem, said the problem of Africa can not be fixed by anyone but Africans.
Dr Abdulraheem said, while addressing the keynote on the "Institutions, Culture and Corruption in Africa," that there is "nothing uniquely African about corruption," stressing at the same time, however, on the need for Africans to "look at the issues from our perspective and not from that of others".
He noted that corruption across Africa often thrived in the midst of weak institutional capacity, poor governance and lack of basic citizens' rights and conjectured that "the alienation of the African from the African state" was often the root cause of this.
According to the ECA, the problem of corruption remains intractable in many African countries, and "it is widely acknowledged that there is a need for more innovative, creative and strategic approaches to deal with it." Okey Onyejekwe also said the problem needs a combined effort not only from the governments of African countries, but also every stakeholders and civil societies, in setting up and supporting anti-corruption institutions in their respective countries The participants of the meeting urged international partners to show greater commitment and sincerity in the support for anti corruption agenda in Africa, according to the Director of UNECA/ GPAD.
The meeting has made recommendation on eight key areas; among them is the need for "a systematic approach in combating corruption including state reform, institutional reengineering and reconstruction of power structure in Africa."
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