Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has said Nigeria losing about $18bn annually to illicit financial flows (IFFs) was due to the collusion of multinationals, foreign governments and their Nigerian collaborators.
Mallam Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, executive director, CISLAC and head, Transparency International (TI) Nigeria, said that the loss was largely generated by tax evasion and fueled also by grand corruption, organised crime activities and many other licit and illicit practices.
He observed that though Nigeria might be an extreme case, the menace is replicated throughout Africa.
He noted that a recent United Nations (UN) panel calculated that for every one dollar gained through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and oversees development aid, Africa loses two dollars because of illicit financial outflows.
He added that corruption and gaps in investor-state arbitration was another area where Nigeria loses precious resources while most Nigerians live in abject poverty.
He cited the Process & Industrial Developments Limited (PID) arbitration case where Nigeria was ordered to pay the firm $6.6bn plus interest, saying that such inadequacy was possible because Nigerian public contracts, especially those in the resource sector, are shrouded in secrecy.
He said, “From the evidence available to us, it seems that no proper planning and tender process was conducted in a multi-billion-dollar deal.
“It is evident that the commercial terms of the agreement represented a catastrophic value for money from a Nigerian perspective. If Nigeria had had a clearer and more robust set of laws and processes around public procurement, such a deal would have never happened.
“Public procurement laws and procedures need to be upgraded, made unconditionally public and be rigorously enforced! Nigeria should also avoid signing up for Public Private partnerships that are not in the public interest.
“Government officials who decide about the fate of our economy do so without any accountability. Corruption thrives in secrecy. Unless all government contracts, especially those concerning the oil sector, are made public, we will continue to lose billions of dollars monthly due to corruption, incompetency, and international scams,” Rafsanjani said.
