The ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) has urged African leaders to adopt a unified response in tackling illicit financial flows in order to realize the objective of making the continent’s resources work for their citizens as stated in the African Union Agenda 2063.
Policy, Advocacy, Campaigns and Communications Manager of AAN Tunde Aremu made the call during the inaugural African Development Week (ADW) held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The conference organised by the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa which was themed “Towards Integrated and Coherent Approach to the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of Agenda 2063, and the Sustainable Development Goals” was coming on the heels of the ‘Panama Paper’ leak currently rocking world politics and economy.
“The implementation of the recommendations of the Thabo Mbeki-led High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows is a strategic step towards the realization of the objective of Africa becoming less dependent on aid and using its own resources for its own development. African leaders therefore have to take a unified position on ending the wholesale stealing of the continent’s resources,” Aremu said.
Also commenting Tax Power Campaign Africa Coordinator of ActionAid International, Luckystar Miyandazi said African leaders’ quest to harness the resources of the continent for the purpose of achieving positive socioeconomic transformation within the next 50 years requires that they plug all loopholes through which the continent loses resources.
“The continent has to act as one to tackle the tax avoidance practices by multinationals and large corporations that have continued to bleed the continent and cause its citizens to live in abject poverty in spite of the enormous resources available to it,” Miyandazi said.
