{"id":24767,"date":"2011-06-06T01:02:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T05:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=24767"},"modified":"2011-06-06T01:02:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T05:02:49","slug":"about-148-billion-is-looted-yearly-from-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=24767","title":{"rendered":"About $148 billion is looted yearly from Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0chairperson of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,\u00a0Farida Waziri (in photo), <\/em>has called for special courts to try corruption cases and urged developed countries to\u00a0help Africa to recover its looted funds, her office said recently. Until this is done, anti-graft agencies on the continent will continue to complain about the slow pace of trial in corruption cases,\u00a0 Economic and Financial Crimes Commission\u00a0head Farida Waziri said in a paper at an international conference in Gaborone, Botswana, the EFCC said in a statement.<\/p>\n

She said although Nigeria was yet to have special courts, the drive for their creation which began in 2008 had continued to win support across the country. She said despite the constraints of slow judicial process, the support and independence given the EFCC by the Nigerian government had helped its work since its establishment eight years ago. If without special courts we can secure over 600 convictions within this short time, you can imagine what we will do if we are to have dedicated judges or courts to hear only corruption cases, she said. Today, our record of recovery is in excess of 11 billion dollars…What it means is that, with special courts and assets forfeiture law, the war against graft would have been taken to a different level, she said.<\/p>\n

Farida also called on developed countries to assist Africa to recover embezzled money stashed in foreign accounts. She said more than 148 billion dollars was being stolen from the continent annually and foreign countries were not doing enough to help repatriate the loot. She said the idea of holding on to stolen funds even after they had been traced and established as ill-gotten was a distortion in global macroeconomic indices. Our experience with certain countries has not been palatable. Consistently some countries have not been too cooperative in retrieval of stolen funds and it will appear that peculiar national interest guides cooperation with us,\u00a0she added.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We must understand that the ill effects of corruption does not only affect the origin of the illicit funds but also the receiving countries in the sense that in both locations, funds that have no bearing on productive ventures has either left the economy or has been injected into it,\u00a0she added.\u00a0It was\u00a0reported in Forbes journal that\u00a0United Kingdom has\u00a0located and blocked 20 billion pounds in Libyan assets and a 10 million pound mansion. While the \u00a0United States\u00a0Treasury has located and blocked $30 billion in Libyan assets. Goldman Sachs lost 98% of Libya\u2019s $1.3 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment\u00a0that squarely\u00a0contributed towards\u00a0the global economic meltdown. But\u00a0how many business officials\u00a0have been\u00a0held accountable and brought to justice for conducting business in an\u00a0unethical and reckless fashion?<\/p>\n

Africans, especially Liberians\u00a0have\u00a0the right to know what happened to Charles Taylor’s alleged\u00a0$5 billion worth of\u00a0transactions\u00a0derived\u00a0from the sale of timber and diamonds exported to the West\u00a0from Liberia,\u00a0and evidence that the transactions were\u00a0handled by\u00a02 US banks during his rule. The BBC had earlier\u00a0reported\u00a0this news\u00a0before the commencement of \u00a0Taylor’s trial at the Hague. How could such huge\u00a0amount of money evaporate into thin air, or escape the West’s scrutiny,\u00a0as no one is talking about it anymore? The\u00a0struggling people of Liberia are desperately awaiting investigations and the successful\u00a0conclusion\u00a0of this matter. Similarly, in the case of Nigeria, the late military dictator Sani Abacha looted about $ 2-3 billion in petro-dollar revenue from Federal coffers and kept the same\u00a0in Swiss Bank. Despite\u00a0appeals from the\u00a0Nigerian government\u00a0to return the\u00a0loot in full, only a\u00a0piece meal portion is\u00a0believed to have been returned to the people and government of Nigeria. Is it not weird thinking or logic\u00a0that African leaders could steal their nation’s wealth and after they have\u00a0left office,\u00a0or expired, succeeding governments have to beg the West for what was originally theirs? Africa has to seamlessly\u00a0scrutinize\u00a0the caliber of\u00a0politicians they elect as their\u00a0leaders. For the cat cannot resist the smell and sight of\u00a0sumptuous fish.<\/p>\n

Waziri’s bombshell revelation\u00a0is an\u00a0indictment of the continent, where corruption is plenty,\u00a0fleshy, and\u00a0bloody. And drives home the inconvenient truth that Africa does not need more\u00a0aid or unfavorable loans that could stall the economic engine of a budding\u00a0and promising\u00a0economy. For what\u00a0Africa needs most is an aggressive blueprint policy\u00a0that tracks down and\u00a0discourages corruption\u00a0before it germinates roots. And the\u00a0emphasis should be put on trade not aid. For aid\u00a0has a counterproductive effect of dependency. Handouts come with\u00a0built in\u00a0conditions\u00a0for\u00a0control. Production is the\u00a0buzz word that\u00a0generates economic wealth\u00a0and a resultant higher standard of living of the people.
\n\u00a0
\nby Roland Bankole Marke\u00a0 www.rolandmarke.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0chairperson of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,\u00a0Farida Waziri (in photo), has called for special courts to try corruption cases and urged developed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[751,1],"tags":[880,8686,7861,8687],"class_list":["post-24767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-news","category-uncategorized","tag-corruption","tag-corruption-in-africa","tag-economic-and-financial-crimes-commission","tag-farida-waziri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}