TUC, Actionaid hold workshop on illicit financial flows

Africa and Ghana have been called upon to put up measures to address illicit financial flows (IFF) to enable the continent to reap enough revenue to curb poverty and economic stagnation.

Mr Vitus Azeem, the Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative, who made the call, said illicit financial flows deprive African countries so much revenue leading to high poverty rate and over reliance on overseas development assistance (ODA).

Addressing participants at a workshop organized by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in collaboration with ActionAid in Accra, on Friday, Mr Azeem said Ghana loses 32 million dollars annually through illicit financial flows, a situation that is seriously undermining revenue mobilisation for national development.

Africa on the other hand, has over the last 50 years lost one trillion dollars to IFF, whiles in a year, it loses 50 billion dollars to IFF.

Illicit financial flows are the illegal movement of money or capital from one country to another through the means of fraudulent activities, tax abuses and unrealistic trade incentives given to investors.

The workshop on tax justice, illicit financial flows and delivery of public goods and services was held under the tax justice campaign, an initiative of ActionAid and attended by members of Tax Justice Coalition, revenue officers, some members of Parliament and members of TUC.

It was on the theme: Financing Ghana’s Socio-economic Development: the Case of Tax Incentives and Illicit Financial Flows”.

Mr Azeem said in Ghana, the cocoa sector is the most affected sector to IFF in the country and that the oil and gas and new found national resources must be protected from the scourge of IFF to enable the country to accrue the needed revenue for national development.

He said there was the need for the enactment and implementation of strong legislation to check corruption and illicit financial flows whiles a global approach to accounting and tax enforcement policies should take account of Africa’s needs.

Mr Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, Country Director of Actionaid, said currently the world loses 192 billion dollars to illicit financial flows annually, of which Africa is the most affected continent.

He said activities like Sim card fraud, that wrought Ghana some few weeks back, are some of the issues that affect ICT in the country.

Mr Abdul-Rahman called on Ghanaians and all stakeholders to work to plug all holes in revenue generation and mobilization to enable the nation to reap enough revenue for development.

Participants are expected to come out with a communiqué that would help inform policy and challenge government to find solutions to the menace of illicit financial flows.