Ibrahim Magu, Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has decried and described as endemic the rate of corruption, tax evasion, money laundering and illicit financial flows within the African sub-region.
He expressed this concern on Wednesday, while making a remark at the opening ceremony of a three-day international tax conference and capacity building workshop on the use of beneficial ownership information and recovery of assets in Africa holding at the Congress Hall, Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
The conference with the topic, “Nigeria leads the fight against money laundering, bribery, corruption and tax evasion” was jointly organized by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank Group (WG).
The conference is a multi-stakeholders initiative on Tax and Good Governance designed to provide a platform for exchange of views regarding the importance of beneficial ownership information in detecting, tracking and preventing money laundering, tax evasion, corruption and other types of illicit financial flows.
It also examines processes and procedures for the recovery of assets, its role in curbing illicit financial flows and how existing practices can be made more effective and efficient.
The EFCC boss described the conference as ‘timely and key’ as it supports the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to recover assets.
According to him, “the government of Nigeria is taking the bull by the horn by initiating policies, that have enhanced the fight against corruption in Nigeria and tremendous efforts are being made to enhance international cooperation to recover our stolen assets”.
He urged all stakeholders to key into the change agenda of the present government with the mantra “kill corruption before corruption kills us”.
Earlier, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who was represented by Director, Technical Services, Larai Shuaibu, expressed concern over the alarming rate of corruption in Africa adding that, an estimated $50billion is being loss every year through illicit financial flows.
She urged participants to continue to work in line with the initiative in order to root out every form of corruption in the economic and financial sector.
Also speaking, Tunde Fowler, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, said the potential of Africa in terms of revenue generation in comparison to the US tax rates were much lower.
He added that, “the only way to get Africa out of the present economic situation is to review the conditions and follow strict compliance”.
In his brief remark, Jeffrey Owens, Project Co-Director, Tax and Good Governance Project, urged the participants to discuss freely on the burning topics noting that about 110 people from various agencies in 20 countries are participating in the conference and capacity building workshop.
He hoped that the road map would open another chapter in strengthening the existing relationship between the various agencies.
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