Africa Loses 5% Of Continental GDP Annually To Illicit Capital Flights – IoDCCG
The Chairman of Institute Of Directors Centre for Corporate Governance, IoDCCG, Alhaji Shuaibu Idris has said that tackling illicit financial flows is a matter of survival for Africa’s development.
According to him Africa not only loses about 5per cent of continental GDP annually to illicit capital flights but the proliferation of illicit financial flows enables terrorist activity and insecurity from the Lake Chad region which includes Nigeria spanning the Sahel region.
Speaking at the IoDCCG Stakeholder Roundtable on ‘A Public/Private Sector Dialogue on Strengthening Anti-Money Laundering/Countering Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) and curbing
illicit financial flows in Nigeria and West Africa,’ which is an initiative of the Center for International Private Enterprise, CIPE, USA and IoD Centre for Corporate
Governance, Shuaibu noted that the dialogue on the topic is coming at an auspicious time considering the set-back suffered by the nation’s economy due to endemic corruption occasioned by money laundering and terrorism financing that has bedevilled our dear nations for many years.
He said the Stakeholder Roundtable has thus provided another opportunity for us to discuss and advocate on this crucial issue with a view making a positive impact that will endure overtime.
” Tackling illicit financial flows is a matter of survival for Africa’s development. Africa not only loses about 5 per cent of continental GDP annually to illicit capital flights but the proliferation of illicit financial flows enables terrorist activity and insecurity from the Lake Chad region which includes Nigeria spanning the Sahel region.
” The losses to economic growth, trade opportunities, and social development is therefore unquantifiable. This constitutes a drain on Africa’s foreign exchange reserves, reduce efforts to enhance domestic resource mobilization, contract investment inflows and contribute to low social development indicators including poverty and inequality”, Shuaibu said.
Speaking further he said it is a collective responsibility and a priority for the private sector, civil society and government to address systemic challenges and gaps undermining the efforts to curb IFF and ML/TF including lack of transparency, weak accountability mechanisms, under capacity, resource mismatch, and others that can be identified through dialogue and strategic engagements of this nature.
IoDCCG is a collaborative project of the Institute of Directors Nigeria (IoD), the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
The Centre is committed to promoting and improving good Corporate
Governance standards in Nigeria through advocacy, advisory services, research, and high-quality training for board members and executives in public and private sector organisations.
IoDCCG is also an Affiliate Member of the African Corporate Governance Network (ACGN) and is licensed by The Center for International Private
Enterprise, (CIPE) Washington D.C, USA on Anti-Corruption and Ethics Compliance.
