Johannesburg - Multi-national companies exploit loopholes across the continent to make and move billions of dollars abroad, Pan African Parliament president Bethel Amadi said on Thursday.
Amadi said the illicit cash flow was prevalent in his country, Nigeria’s vast oil and gas industry.
“In my country, Nigeria, multi-national energy companies continue to recruit so called foreign experts for low level skills such as welders and so on, the same skills that are abundantly available in Nigeria,” he told the PAP sitting in Midrand, Johannesburg.
“They are recruited and paid a daily rate equivalent to a monthly salary of a Nigerian, hence billions of dollars flow out of the oil and gas industry to overseas.”
There has been means to combat financial crimes in Nigeria, but such measures had not been implemented, Amadi said.
“There has been no implementation whatsoever even though our own Parliament had already adopted such measures.”
Mbeki said some African countries had vested interests in the crimes and were getting a tiny slice of the proceeds.
“They could be getting crumbs from the illicit activities, but when those crumbs are worth US$10 million, it all becomes worthwhile crumbs for them,” he said.
More money was needed to strengthen available institutions and allow them to independently exercise their mandate, recruitment and training of top personnel to fight the scourge, he said.
Earlier, Mbeki presented a report which showed that Africa lost US$50 a year due to illicit cash flows from the continent. He said most of the cash was lost due to governments in Africa and multi-national corporations colluding through corrupt activities crafted to avoid tax payments, to the detriment of some of the countries.
The session was followed by a debate by members of the House, after which the report was adopted.
ANA