Ghana will join fight to stop illicit financial flows:From Africa
Ghana has pledged its commitment to join hands with the rest of the continent to fight against illicit financial flows which cause the continent to lose $50 billion annually.
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Africa is said to lose that amount through activities including money laundering, corruption and under declaration of taxes by revenue mobilisation agencies.
The Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Mr Abdalla Hamdock, made this known to the Daily Graphic when a 10-member High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa led by its Chairman, Mr Thabo Mbeki, conferred with the Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, at the Flagstaff House on Wednesday.
Against that backdrop, Mr Amissah-Arthur expressed the government’s resolve to reform the relevant laws of the country to help strengthen institutions of state to protect the country against all forms of illegal monetary transactions.
The major sources of financial leakage have been identified in the area of commercial activities by multinationals and activities such as illegal drug trade and counterfeiting.
Panel’s mandate
The African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Conference of African Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning set up the panel with the mandate to ensure that Africa’s accelerated and sustained development relied as much as possible on its own resources.
The panel engaged Mr Amissah-Arthur on the contribution Ghana could make to achieve that objective.
Mr Amissah-Arthur said that it was the expectation of Ghana to share database with other countries to help build the capacity of custom officials in the fight against illicit activities.
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Describing Ghana as a model which many other African countries used as a reference point, he expressed the government’s willingness to support the initiative for an annual review of the panel’s work.
Report
Mr Mbeki, a former President of South Africa, said the panel had toured the various regions in Africa to update the respective governments on the progress so far made.
He stated that the panel had already presented its report to the African Union and that the next stage was the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report.
He added that the panel was to set up structures for the continent to work in a coordinated fashion to accelerate the process of blocking illegal financial outflows from the continent.
Dignitaries present at the meeting included the National Security Advisor to the President, Alhaji Baba Kamara, the National Security Coordinator, Mr Yaw Donkor, and officials from the Financial Intelligence Centre.