Olukoyede challenges commonwealth nations on fight against financial crimes
The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Commission has revealed that the African continent is currently losing $88.6 billion yearly to corruption and illicit financial flows.
The commission’s Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, who disclosed this yesterday in Niger State at a regional certification training on financial investigation for anti-corruption institutions in the ECOWAS region, regretted that the development takes up 3.7 per cent of the continent’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) .
Represented by Ebenezer Asiedu, the commission’s Head of Democracy and Good Governance division, Musah noted that corruption and financial crime are among the biggest obstacles to economic and social development in West Africa and around the world.
He said: “Research indicates that Africa loses a staggering $88.6 billion yearly to corruption and illicit financial flows, which take up 3.7% of our continent’s GDP.
“As the financial industry experiences growth in West Africa, the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and other emerging forms of online financial systems have introduced new risks and vulnerabilities across member states, underscoring the need for anti-corruption institutions to develop specialised skills and knowledge to effectively combat these crimes.”
According to him, since the dawn of democratic governance in West Africa, the ECOWAS Commission has been strongly committed and has worked tirelessly throughout the region to support the deepening of democratic governance norms and practices .
These efforts, he said, are in line with ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government’s collective commitment to the principles of democracy and good governance as enshrined in the ECOWAS Revised ECOWAS Treaty (1993) and other extant legal and normative instruments, such as the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance (2001) and the Protocol on the Fight Against Corruption (2001).
MEANWHILE, the EFCC boss has challenged commonwealth nations to learn from Nigeria’s proactive reforms and collaborative approaches in its fight against corruption to strengthen their defences against financial crimes.
He threw this challenge yesterday at the opening of a five-day Commonwealth Law Conference organised by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) in Malta, with the theme, “Combating Transnational Organised Crime in the Commonwealth: Opportunities and Challenges.”
Olukoyede, who spoke on the topic, “Combating Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation Financing: Has FATF Enhanced Monitoring Made any Difference in Non-Compliant Countries?”, said the Financial Action Task Force (FATF’s) enhanced monitoring framework, while presenting significant challenges, also offers a clear roadmap for reforms.
According to him, Nigeria’s experience reinforces the fact that the benefits of monitoring extend beyond mere compliance to the creation of a resilient financial system capable of disrupting the financing of terrorism and proliferation activities.
In his advice to the commonwealth nations, the EFCC boss said that while the FATF has made major changes to the criteria for putting countries on its lists to relieve pressures on least developed countries and focus on those countries posing greater risks to the international financial system, “members of the Commonwealth should continue to push for more considerations for countries in the sub-Saharan who continued to constitute the highest number on countries on the enhanced monitoring list.”
