Developing Countries Losing $1trn Annually To Illicit Financial Flow, NEITI Alerts

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji has disclosed that developing countries lose about $1trillion annually to illicit financial flows due to secret ownership of companies.
Orji, who spoke, yesterday, at a stakeholders’ forum on Beneficial Ownership (BO), implementation in Nigeria, said beneficial ownership disclosure has become very important “because of the serious dangers that secret ownership of companies pose to individual countries and the global community”.
He pointed out that crimes such as “tax evasion and terrorism financing, which are associated with or facilitated by secret ownership, increases poverty in developing countries and threaten the national security of even powerful nations”.
He explained that a recent report by former South Africa president, Thabo Mbeki estimated that African countries lose $50billion annually due to illicit financial flows.
“Nigeria accounts for the lion share of these losses, with extractive industry accounting for 93 percent of total illicit financial flows from Nigeria”.