By Emeka Chiakwelu
Another corruption summit will again take place in London. This time
around the chief organizer and town crier is David Cameron’s Great
Britain. The last one about two years ago was initiated by G8 and we are
still waiting for solutions and results.
“Police Minister, Judith Collins will represent the Prime Minister at the
London Anti-Corruption Summit being hosted by UK Prime Minister David
Cameron on 12 May 2016. The Summit will promote the importance of exposing
corruption, punishing those responsible and supporting those who have
suffered, and driving out the culture of corruption, where it exists.
Prime Minister Cameron is also inviting the leaders of the world’s major
international institutions that play a key role in anti-corruption efforts
around the globe.”
Not to be called Afro-pessimist but how meetings are enough? Experts and
organizers of all these summits know what to do to eradicate, if not
minimize corruption but continue to play politics with it. Evidently,
what they lack is the willpower and chutzpah to do the right thing.
Corruption is decelerating and impending progress in Africa. In “Panama
Papers” report many individuals and entities were embroiled in tax
evasions and denied countries from getting funds that can be utilized to
develop infrastructures. Where are United Nations, European Union and
African Union on doing credible and verifiable investigations on Panama
papers?
As noted by Alex de Waal, “Africa loses at least $50 billion a year — and
probably much, much more than that — perfectly lawfully. About 60% of this
loss is from aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations, which
organise their accounts so that they make their profits in tax havens,
where they pay little or no tax. Much of the remainder is from organised
crime with a smaller amount from corruption. This was the headline finding
of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, headed by
former South African President Thabo Mbeki, a year ago.”
And he further stressed that the “amount is the same or smaller than
international development assistance ($52 billion per year) or remittances
($62 billion). If we take the accumulated stock of these illicit financial
flows since 1970 and factor in the returns on this capital, Africa has
provided the rest of the world with $1.7 trillion, at a conservative
estimate. Africa is a capital exporter.”
The problem of corruption especially in Africa and indeed in the
developing countries is an old and tiring story not because it has lost
its importance but for the fact that the level of hypocrisy associated
with it, is blatantly overwhelming.
Many a times we have heard the war cry and proposals to defeat corruption
particularly the war against corruption. But instead of corruption to be
diminishing and ebbing away, it is rather gaining momentum.
So this time around, can we take this summit serious or it is just an
intellectual and esoteric exercise?
Corruption poses a great danger in Africa especially among the oil
producing nations of Africa. The former South African president Thabo
Mbek, who became the chairman of a panel that monitors Africa’s unlawful
financial capital flight, reported that “Over 50 billion U.S. dollars is
illicitly transferred from Africa annually with multinational corporations
being the main culprits.”
And it was further stated by the panel that “Sub-Saharan Africa has
experienced an exodus of more than 700 billion dollars in capital flight
since 1970, a sum that far surpasses the region’s external debt
outstanding of roughly 175 billion dollars. It is believed that some of
the money wound up in private accounts at the same banks that were making loans to African governments.”
The sources of the capital flight comes mostly from earnings of oil and
mineral exports and Osita Ogbu, a Fellow at Brookings suggested that
“billions of dollars in debt that Africa has accumulated in its
post-colonial era are partially a result of irresponsible foreign
lenders,” as China.org.cn reported.
When it comes to bribery and money laundering, Royal African Society
reported: “The World Bank estimates that $1 trillion is paid in bribes
each year throughout the world. African countries are prominent among
those said to be corrupt in Transparency International’s Corruption Index
and the negative impact of high levels of bribery and theft is compounded
by the tendency to take the ill-gotten proceeds out of the continent.
Indeed, the African Union estimates that the continent loses as much as
$148 billion a year to corruption. This money is rarely invested in Africa
but finds its way into the international banking system and often into
western banks. The proceeds of corrupt practices in Africa, (which the
African experts group recommended in 2002 should be classified as a ‘crime
against humanity’ because of its impact on ordinary people), are often
laundered and made respectable by some of the most well-known banks in the
City of London or the discreet personal bankers of Geneva and Zurich.”
And it further stressed that “while the Swiss have been cleaning up their
banking system, the City of London is now the laundry of choice for much
dirty money.”
Therefore this is not the time to give a lip service and issue press
releases that will be buried in heaps of failures of yesterdays.
Anti-corruption legislation is utmost important to be enacted in the West
with regards to money laundering. For the responsibility of fighting
corruption is too complex and gigantic to be left for one party. Both
Africa and West must partake in the fight against corruption. The West
must enact banking laws that will fish out bankers that accept laundered
money and tainted wealth from corrupt African leaders and bureaucrats.
Ill-gotten wealth must be returned to Africa without much ado, while the
culprits must be exposed and prosecuted.
Emeka Chiakwelu, Principal Policy Strategist at Afripol. Africa Political
& Economic Strategic Center (AFRIPOL) is foremost a public policy center
whose fundamental objective is to broaden the parameters of public policy
debates in Africa. To advocate, promote and encourage free enterprise,
democracy, sustainable green environment, human rights, conflict
resolutions, transparency and probity in Africa. www.afripol.org
[email protected]
