African leaders urged to tackle illicit financial flows

A group of civil society experts on Friday called on African leaders to step up fight against illicit financial flows, an issue which is of critical importance to regional development.

In a joint statement, the experts said illicit financial inflows (IFFs) was robbing the African continent of more than 70 billion U.S. dollars, representing one of the largest problems facing Africa today.

The group, which also issued a set of recommendations highlighting 14 steps dubbed Accelerating the IFF Agenda for African Countries, said the African leaders should take steps to address illicit financial flows (IFFs).

Among the recommendations are suggestions to establish a multi-agency approach to fight IFFs, to collect information to identify corporate ownership, and certain tax-related measures.

Jason Rosario Braganza, Deputy Executive Director of Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A) in Kenya, said the accelerated IFF agenda for African countries comes at a time where there is vacuum in global leadership on the issues of IFFs.

"The 14 point agenda integrates fundamental political and institutional steps that African governments and African multilateral agencies have begun taking to curb IFFs from the continent," Braganza said.

"The Accelerated IFF Agenda is timely as African governments take up the mantle of leadership to track it, stop it, get it in order to further the continents' development agenda," he added.

The international community has already recognized IFFs as a major impediment to development, incorporating reduction of IFFs into the Financing for Development Conference's Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Global Financial Integrity President Raymond Baker said development experts have identified domestic resource mobilization as the most crucial ingredient in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.

"Illicit financial flows are corrosive to development efforts and curtail the ability to capture domestic resources. It will require energetic and concerted action from governments to fix the problem and the Accelerated IFF Agenda identifies effective steps to kick-start the process," Baker said.

Donald Deya, Chief Executive Officer of the Pan African Lawyers' Union (PALU) said the Accelerated IFF Agenda addresses governance and accountability concerns and why the African Union should take note of the document in its discussions this week.

Deya said the AU has taken a lead role in recognizing the problem of IFFs on the continent.

"It can take a step further by including IFF-measures in the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), stating loud and clear that good governance means addressing IFFs. I am in Addis Ababa this week to commence this discussion with government representatives, on behalf of our colleagues," he said. Endit