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President Muhammadu Buhari has said there will be no compromise in his government’s anti corruption crusade.
Buhari made this known when the former President of South Africa and Chairman of the AU/ECA High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa,Thabo Mbeki visited him.
“For my administration, fighting corruption and Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in Nigeria is non-gegotiable,” said President Buhari.
Mbeki visited the President to follow up on the efforts of AU Member States to implement the recommendations of the High-Level Panel Report endorsed by the AU in 2015.
Mbeki, therefore, called upon the President in his capacity as the AU Anti-Corruption Champion to lead the efforts to engage action from other AU Member States towards tackling IFFs at the national, regional and continental level.
Former South African President had earlier met with representatives of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at the federal level in Nigeria which deal with Financial and legislative matters to gain an understanding of the country’s ongoing efforts to tackle Illicit Financial Flows.
Mbeki recalled the 2015 Special Declaration to address IFFs, which was a realization by African leaders of the excessive losses due to illicit outflows.
“The view was that the continent was losing resources which should have been available for its development to these illicit outflows,” he said.
He emphasized the level of losses from IFFs, which at the time of the Panel’s Report was $50bn annually, but has now grown to about $80bn annually.
“Africa has led this agenda and brought it to global attention. This was evident when the African Heads of States asked our Panel to help address this issue,” Mbeki noted.
He said further that Nigeria and in turn, all other AU member states need legislation to deal with money laundering, financial intelligence and tax evasion.
It is recalled that the presidency recently introduced the Executive Order 6,placing some 50 individual Nigerians on a travel ban pending the determination of allegations of corrupt enrichment against them.
