Africa: Alweendo Urges Us to Help Stop Illegal Billions Flowing Out of Africa

23 November 2017

Windhoek — A 2014 report titled 'One Trillion Dollar Scandal', by an organization called the One Campaign, claims that developing countries lose US$1 trillion annually to corporate transgressions, most of which, it says, is traceable to the activities of companies with secret ownership. Another report in 2015 on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, chaired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, stated that Africa had lost an additional US$1 trillion over a 50-year period and that the continent loses more than US$50 billion annually to illicit financial flows.

The reports concur that most of these illicit flows are perpetrated in the extractive sector and through companies with hidden ownership. To support this claim, the coordinator of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) in West Africa, Dr Kojo Busia, disclosed that Africa loses in excess of US$80 billion annually through illicit financial flows (IFF) and while being used as a tax haven by the mining industry alone. Busia warned that tax avoidance by some multinational companies is undermining domestic resource mobilisation efforts in most African countries, leading to loss of nearly US$50 billion over the last decade.

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