Africa losing billions through graft

The Economic Community of West Africa States (Ecowas) Commission has revealed that the African continent is losing $88.6bn yearly to corruption and illicit financial flows, reports The Guardian Nigeria. This was disclosed last week by the commission’s commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, Abdel-Fatau Musah. ‘Research indicates that Africa loses a staggering $88.6bn yearly to corruption and illicit financial flows, which take up 3.7% of our continent’s GDP. As the financial industry experiences growth in West Africa, the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and other emerging forms of online financial systems have introduced new risks and vulnerabilities across member states, underscoring the need for anti-corruption institutions to develop specialised skills and knowledge to effectively combat these crimes,’ Musah said. Meanwhile, Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss Olanipekun Olukoyede has challenged commonwealth nations to learn from Nigeria’s proactive reforms and collaborative approaches in its fight against corruption to strengthen their defences against financial crimes. Speaking the opening of the Commonwealth Law Conference in Malta, he said Nigeria’s experience reinforceed the fact that the benefits of monitoring extend beyond mere compliance to the creation of a resilient financial system capable of disrupting the financing of terrorism and proliferation activities. The EFCC boss said that while the Financial Action Task Force has made major changes to the criteria for putting countries on its lists to relieve pressures on least developed countries and focus on those countries posing greater risks to the international financial system, ‘members of the commonwealth should continue to push for more considerations for countries in the sub-Saharan who continued to constitute the highest number of countries on the enhanced monitoring list’.

Full report in The Guardian Nigeria