27/08/13 United Nations Economic Commission for Africa : Extractive Sector Is Critical to Africa's Illicit Money Outflows – Mbeki

Mr
Mbeki's delegation, which is technically supported by the United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), is in the DRC as part of a continent-wide
and global campaign to help stop the huge amounts of money being illegally
taken away from Africa – a phenomenon which is
helping to delay the continent's socioeconomic transformation.

At the
start of the three-day mission, Mr Mbeki and his team met with President Joseph
Kabila, Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo and eight other members of the
Government of the DRC to discuss the nature of illicit outflows of money from
the resource-rich country and learn what the State is doing about it. According
Prime Minister Matata Ponyo, there is a direct link between conflict, the
exploitation of mineral resources and the illegal transfer of capital from his
country.

He noted
that the Government of the DRC started efforts to fight the phenomenon of
illegal money outflows in 2004 through the regulation of foreign currency
exchange, the enactment of laws to reduce the practice while boosting
transparency in banking transactions, as well as cooperation with international
partners in view of returning illegally transferred capital to the country.

The ECA
team manning the Panel's Secretariat has used the visit to explain the modus
operandi of the Panel and to depict the faces of illicit monetary outflows.

These
include: kickbacks and other forms of corruption involving civil servants;
criminal activity such as drug and money trafficking and money laundering; as
well as fraudulent commercial transactions such as tax evasion, the distortion
of money transfer charges and over-billing (especially by transnational firms).

Mr Mbeki
said his team would build on the experience gathered from all countries visited
to recommend actions to be taken to halt the illegal transfer of money from Africa and to get illegally transferred funds repatriated
to the continent.

The idea
of setting up the HLP was hatched in Addis Ababa
in March 2011 during the 4th Joint Annual Meeting of the Africa Union
Conference of African Ministers of Economy and Finance and Economic Commission
for Africa's Conference of African Ministers
of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

The two
institutions were given the mandate to coordinate the mission of the Panel,
which started full-fledged work on 5 February 2012.

The
Panel's overall mission, which is to make clear recommendations on curbing
illicit financial flows from Africa, is
considered crucial given current estimates that the continent now loses at
least 50 billion dollars yearly due to illicit financial flows – a figure that
exceeds the Official Development Assistance (ODA) it receives.