Tanzania leads the list of East African states that have lost billions of dollars to money laundering, tax evasion, government graft and other illegal operations, according to a report by a US-based financial watchdog group.
The report “Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resources for Development,” by Global Financial Integrity, states that the country has lost $8.9 billion over the past four decades through the illicit means. Kenya lost $7.3 billion while Uganda lost $6.4 billion over the same period.
The three East African countries thus lost a total of $22.6 billion, money that would be sufficient to wipe out their combined outstanding external debt while leaving several billion dollars available for fighting poverty and spurring economic growth. The study points out that the impact of these losses is felt most acutely by the poorest Africans. The illicit outflow of money also “drains hard currency reserves, heightens inflation, reduces tax collection, cancels investment and undermines free trade,” the study says.
Tanzania is ranked 13th among the top 15 countries with cumulative illicit outflows after Angola, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. Zambia and Zimbabwe take the 14th and 15th positions respectively.
Already, Global Financial Integrity has started collecting signatures to petition the G20 Transparency at the G20 summit this June. The organisation is looking for 100,000 signatures from all over the world to forward to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the current president of the G20. “Our goal is to show him the names of 100,000 people from all over the world who support ending banking secrecy, increasing financial transparency, and finally attacking the root causes of poverty.”
Read the rest of this (Tanzania to be ASHAMED of) report at TheEastAfrican... (click here)
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