JOHANNESBURG: Africa loses $50-billion a year due to illicit financial outflows from the continent, former South African president and chairman of the African Union High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday.
Mbeki’s report pointed to governments in Africa and multi-national corporations colluding through corrupt activities crafted to avoid tax payments, to the detriment of some of the countries. “In the past 50 years, Africa has lost $3-trillion due to illicit financial flows. Corruption remains a major concern despite global and regional adoption of measures to combat it,” Mbeki told the Pan African Parliament sitting in Midrand, Johannesburg.
“Corruption is a cross cutting and integral part of illicit financial outflows because of its facilitating role.” Mbeki added that criminal activities such as drug-trafficking accounted for 30 percent of illicit financial outflows. He said there was no global structure to stop illicit financial activities. The number of regional efforts were not effective, and thus stamping of outflows should fall under the auspices of the United Nations.
