By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, Feb. 26, GNA – Dr Ibn Chambas, the African Union (AU) High Representative for Silencing Gun, has urged African governments, particularly the Government of Ghana, to prioritise combating Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) as a sustainable strategy to offset reliance on dwindling donor aid.
He said the amount of funds African countries lost through IFFs was enough to finance all the development needs of the continent.
The diplomat said this via a virtual platform at the governance forum themed: “From Elections to Governance in Ghana: Managing for Results.”
It was organised by the Africa Centre for Governance and Economic Management (AGEM) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).
The forum, attended by policymakers, academics, and civil society leaders, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Professor Kwaku Danso Boafo, aligns with the National Economic Dialogue spearheaded by President John Mahama, on March 3 – 4, 2025.
Discussions emphasised the need for rigorous costing, monitoring, and implementation of campaign pledges to translate governance promises into tangible results.
Dr Chambas revealed that Africa lost over $60 billion annually to IFFs, a figure equivalent to the continent’s total donor inflows in 2023.
“For Ghana alone, an estimated $3 billion vanishes yearly through illicit practices, including under-invoicing, tax evasion, and illegal resource transfers,” he said.
He cited alarming audits by Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), which uncovered $1.8 billion illegally transferred abroad without records between 2018–2020, alongside $1.5 billion in unreported gold exports by mining firms.
“Why approach the IMF for loans with harsh conditionalities when we can mobilise equivalent funds domestically by simply curbing IFFs? Whining for aid is not a development strategy,” he said.
He called for urgent reforms to strengthen customs oversight, enhance transparency in extractive industries, and leverage continental trade frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to bolster intra-African commerce and revenue retention.
Dr Chambas urged stakeholders to hold leaders accountable for manifesto commitments, noting that blocking IFFs could fund critical infrastructure, social programmes, and job creation without external borrowing.
One of the challenges the country faced was the absence of an implementation plan to deliver on campaign promises.
“We must simply improve delivery on our plans, programmes, projects, and manifesto promises. In other words, we are weak at delivery, and we are all too familiar with that,” he said.
That, he said, could be addressed by costing projects and manifestos, determining how the funding will be raised, benchmarking implementation, monitoring, and evaluation on a regular basis across the delivery value chain.
GNA