President of the UN General Assembly (PGA), Amb. Tijani Muhammad-Bande, has advocated enhanced accountability and transparency regimes especially in developing countries to curb illicit financial flows (IFFs).
In an interview, he also called for more commitment in the implementation of international agreements or resolutions against money laundering and IFFs.
Muhammad-Bande, who is Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN, decried the huge resources lost by developing countries through corruption and illicit financial outflows.
Blaming the situation largely on loopholes in financial integrity systems, he indicated that the resources lost by the countries to the menace could go a long way in bridging their budget deficits.
The Nigerian envoy said rather than focus on plugging the gaps, they tend to lean towards rich nations for official development assistance (ODA), which he said could never be sufficient.
A joint report by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Global Financial Integrity indicate that sub-Saharan Africa lost nearly one trillion dollars (N350 trillion) to IFFs between 1980 and 2018.
This theft continued to rob developing countries of resources they badly needed for implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the PGA.
Muhammad-Bande spoke on the `High-level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda’ inaugurated by the General Assembly on Monday.
The mandate of the panel of experts include identifying suspected gaps and vulnerabilities in financial transparency, accountability and integrity systems at national and international levels.
The aim was to plug those gaps to save resources for mobilisation toward the SDGs, part of which an additional investment of over 2.5 trillion dollars was needed to be made annually by 2030.
Muhammad-Bande said the fact that IFFs persist in spite of existing institutional and legal frameworks against them meant there were gaps that should be plugged.
He said: “We know that international bodies are already working to promote cleaner and more transparent finance. Many questions have arisen as to what gaps and vulnerabilities there are.
“But we also know that there are gaps, loopholes and vulnerabilities.
“New cases are emerging every day detailing the pilfering of resources, money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and other financial crimes.
“All these are issues and what we have done simply to raise an independent panel of experts to examine for all us what the gaps are and how they can be plugged,’’ he said.
According to him, the panel is not a duplication of efforts, but rather on a fact-finding mission to identify the weaknesses of existing bodies and initiatives with a view to strengthening them.
The panel, he explained, was based on General Assembly’s Resolution 74/206, which called for more consideration of “combating illicit financial flows and strengthening good practices on assets return to foster sustainable development,’’.
The panel was expected to meet at least four times across different regions and produced a report in February, 2021, according to the office of the PGA.
The report will offer “evidence-based recommendations on how to make the systems for financial accountability, transparency and integrity more comprehensive, robust, effective, and universal in approach’’.
Reminded of the implementation challenges suffered by reports of similar bodies in the past, the Nigerian envoy advised against cynicism.
“Let us not assume at all times that things are bad, I do not think that is the point. Our approach is to think afresh.
“Are there rules to be made easier so that implementation would be easier?
“I do not agree that reports are not implemented. Efforts are made to implement them but sometimes, not as successful as we would want them to be,’’ he said.(NAN)
