President Akufo-Addo, according to a story we have carried at our front page today, has descended heavily on some developed countries, which are harbouring an estimated US$88 billion illicitly transferred money from the African economy to theirs, and still describing countries where these monies were illegally transferred from as corrupt.
Nana Addo, who rooted his argument in a report of the panel, chaired by the highly respected former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, on the illicit flow of funds from Africa, insisted that it was wrong for these developed countries to receive these illegal monies and then turn round to describe the affected African countries as being corrupt.
The Ghanaian leader contended that since the $88 billion was seen as illegal money, countries, which had taken custody of it, must immediately return them to Africa. “Yes, those monies too must be returned to the Continent. It is difficult to understand why the recipient countries are comfortable about retaining such funds, and are happy to call those countries from whom the monies are taken as corrupt,” he told the UN General Assembly.
The Chronicle commends the President for making such a bold statement in no mean place than the United Nations General Assembly. Most of the problems confronting Africa today were caused by these developed countries, but they are always quick to label the Continent with all kinds of negative tags. Most of the money stolen from African, either by politicians or business gurus, are stashed away, in most of the cases, in Europe, and especially in Switzerland.
Because the developed nations are using the stolen money to their advantage, they keep quiet about it. But at any least opportunity they get, they brand African countries as corrupt. Of course, some of the African leaders are, indeed, corrupt, and The Chronicle is not in any way trying to defend them. We are rather against the hypocrisy of the developed countries.
The late military ruler of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, is on record to have stashed away billions of dollars stolen from tax payers into Swiss bank accounts. No one can convince us that the Swiss authorities did not know what Abacha was doing, but because it was benefiting their economy they kept mute. They only started singing like a canary after the military general had died and Nigeria started tracking monies he had stolen from the state.
We can also talk about the late Mobutu Sese Sekou, former President of the then Zaire, who reportedly embezzled between US$4 and $15 billion. The bulk of these huge sums of money were kept in European banks. Again, the beneficiaries of these illegal monies never coughed until Mobutu was removed from power, after years of rebellion against his government.
Interestingly, the developed countries, which received these stolen monies from Africa, are always the first to cast the stone, without looking at the plank in their own eye. In law, as we are being told by ‘our learned friends’, both the giver of a bribe and the receiver are all guilty of the crime. Somebody had stolen from his or her people and kept the money in your banks, yet you don’t see yourself as a corrupt person, but the one who stole is described as corrupt – what kind of hypocrisy is this?
It is upon the basis of this that The Chronicle is a hundred percent behind the statement made by President Akufo-Addo, and demands that, indeed, all illicit money flowing from Africa to the developed countries must be repatriated to Africa.
As President Akufo-Addo noted in the same UN speech, which will be a subject for another commentary later, Europe and the United States developed on the back of resources stolen from Africa, yet the people are not being accorded the needed dignity and respect, and this must stop.
