The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday called on development partners and other stakeholders to scale up support for Nigeria and other African countries to tackle Illicit Financial Flows (IFF).
The UNDP’s Country Director, Samuel Bwalya, made the call in Abuja at a high level technical consultation on public tax and fiscal transparent rules for multinational and private individual in Africa.
“African government must tackle illicit financial flows with greater precision and our development partners must commit to support these measures with credibility and honesty.
“Multinational companies, international financial and banking institutions, civil society and citizens alike must all stand up to bring the change we all want as we move to implement the global agenda,” he said.
Bwalya said that to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) African leaders and other stakeholders must join hands in stamping out IFFs.
According to him dealing with trans-boundary economic crimes and illicit flow of resources requires cooperation between source and recipient countries including those that provide tax haven.
He said that this made bilateral and multilateral cooperation on the issue as an important determinant of the speed and level of success that can be attained as far as addressing the root causes of illicit financial flows is concerned.
“Policy and regulatory regimes are certainly important in addressing these issues, but Africa also suffers greatly from institutional failures, weather internationally designed or through capacity limitation to interpret, monitor and enforce economic laws.
“In some ways merely strengthening existing institutions by giving them greater autonomy and tools with which to carry out their duties can make a big difference in how they discharge their legitimate mandate,” he said.
Bwalya,  called for support for institutional strengthening which includes the ideas of Tax Inspectors Without Border which UNDP and other partners are championing.