The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said Africa loses about $88 billion to illicit financial flows yearly.
The minister who was delivering a keynote speech at the opening of the fifth session of the African Union Specialised Technical Subcommittee on Tax and Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs), jointly hosted with the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), in Abuja yesterday, noted that these are resources that should otherwise be invested in infrastructure, education, healthcare and productive sectors.
He said Africa was facing the challenges of tax evasion, base erosion, limited economic diversification, weak institutional capacity, as well as continued dependence on external financing.
“Addressing the challenges is not optional; it is essential,” he said. “These sources remain important, but they are inherently uncertain and often influenced by external dynamics beyond our control”, the minister said.
He insisted the foundation of sustainable development must be domestic resource mobilisation as “our continental ambition is clear: to mobilise up to 90 per cent of Africa’s development financing needs from domestic resources, as envisioned under Agenda 2063”. This, he said, would require not incremental change, but systemic reform to achieve.
