President Akufo-Addo demands payment of reparations for Africa

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has demanded the payment of reparations for the countries affected by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

He stated that, while no amount of money could compensate for the tragedies of the time, the point would be made that evil was perpetrated on Africans.

“No amount of money will ever make up for the horrors, but it would make the point that evil was perpetrated, that millions of productive Africans were snatched from the embrace of our continent, and put to work in the Americas and the Caribbean without compensation for their labour,” he told the Assembly

The President made the demand when he took his turn at the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York.

World leaders and representatives have gathered at UN headquarters for the high-level debate, which will run through September 26, 2023.

President Akufo-Addo noted that the time had come for Europe and the United States of America to acknowledge that the vast wealth they enjoy was harvested from the sweat, tears, blood and horrors of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the centuries of colonial exploitation.

“Maybe we should also admit that it cannot be easy to build confident and prosperous societies from nations that, for centuries, had their natural resources looted and their peoples traded as commodities,” he added.

The President pointed out that the world had been unwilling and unable to confront the realities of the consequences of the slave trade.

He said it was time to bring the subject of reparations firmly to the fore.

“Granted that current generations are not the ones that engaged in the slave trade, but that grand inhuman enterprise was state-sponsored and deliberate, and its benefits are clearly interwoven with the present-day economic architecture of the nations that designed and executed it.

“If there are any hesitations in some minds about the paying of reparations, it is worth considering the fact that, when slavery was abolished, the slave owners were compensated for the loss of the slaves, because the human beings were labelled as property, deemed to be commodities.

“Surely, this is a matter that the world must confront, and can no longer ignore. The AU has authorised Ghana to hold a global conference on the issue in November in Accra,” he stated.

President Akufo-Addo also referred to the report of the panel chaired by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, on the illicit flow of funds from Africa, which states that Africa lost more than $88 billion annually through illicit outflows.

“Yes, those monies too must be returned to the continent. It is difficult to understand why the recipient countries are comfortable about retaining such funds and are happy to call those countries from whom the monies are taken as corrupt,” he indicated.

The President insisted that a joint task force of the African Union Commission and the OECD Secretariat, under the auspices of the UN, should be charged to find ways of stopping the damaging outflows.

On the matter of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the President stated that, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ghana, like many other parts of the world, was making progress with the 17 SDGs.

“Today, the picture we have of our performance is not very bright. Most of the 21 targets designated for achievement by 2020 have not been met, and we are not on track to achieve many other targets by 2030,” he said

According to the 2023 SDG report, just 12 percent of the targets are on track to be achieved.

“Progress on fifty per cent of the targets is weak. The most disappointing part is that we have stalled or retrogressed more than thirty per cent of the targets.

“We need to accelerate action on the entire project,” the President stated.