The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International (TI) in Ghana, has expressed grave concern about the billions of dollars Ghana loses as a result of illicit Financial Flows across the country’s borders.
The concern comes at a time Africa is reported to lose an estimated $67 billion annually to illicit financial flows perpetrated through shady financial transactions; tax fraud; and direct movement of cash and other assets across its borders; unchecked.
Locally, trade misinvoicing alone costs Ghana an estimated 1.4 billion dollars every year, with gold smuggling and minerals tax evasion costing Ghana 2 billion dollars annually.
Highlighting these concerns at a day’s workshop held for selected journalists in the Ashanti Region; The anticorruption body warned that the trend entrenches Ghana’s dependence on foreign aid and retards the country’s development.
Fundraising Manager with the Ghana Integrity Initiative Michael Boadi insisted that Ghana would not require external aid and austere conditionality’s if such illicit financial flows were curtailed.
“Juxtapose that to what we are receiving from IMF and the challenges of haircuts and all the other conditionality’s that the country is being subjected to. it should give you an idea of how much the country is losing,” he pointed out
Impact on DEVELOPMENT
Michael Boadi drew attention to the level of hemorrhaging and the development such stolen resources could contribute to the building of social infrastructure and interventions for ordinary citizens of the country.
“Normally we estimate the cost of corruption and illegal financial flows on the nominal value but we don’t look at the opportunity cost or the development that is forgone. Any time you hear these figures, think about the roads, the hospitals, medications and schools that it could have provided,” he lamented.
Among other things, the capacity building workshop equipped media personnel to identify illicit financial flows cloaked in unfair trade practices; transfer mispricing, beneficial ownership, smuggling, the complexity of cross border syndicates and the layers and manifestations of money laundering activities.
Urging journalists to apply themselves diligently to investigative journalism; Mr. Boadi emphasized that journalists willing to make significant impact in unearthing IFFs, required depth of understanding of the complexities of sophisticated dealings which usually goes beyond the scope of conventional reporting.
The comprehensive training organized with support from the Norwegian Government forms part of the objective of GII, to spearhead interagency collaboration between journalists; law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to expose this wanton theft of Ghana’s resources.
Media and Interagency Collaborations
West Africa Policy Analyst for GLOBAL FINANCIAL INTEGRITY Maxwell Kpebesaan Kuu-Ire reiterated the power of interagency interactions between investigative journalists and the state in combating crimes.
“The SML report by THE 4th Estate had so much traction that the government invited KPMG to conduct an audit and the findings were revealing. There should be that collaboration between research organizations, development organizations, and journalists such that we can do a lot more especially in the area of beneficial ownership and procurement fraud,” he advocated.
The project dabbed, “Illicit Financial Flows Reduced and Domestic Resource Mobilization Increased in Targeted Countries” is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) through Global Financial Integrity (GFI).
Under the project, journalists are further offered a window to seek funding, technical support and facilitation to conduct investigations on corruption and illicit financial flows.
