Africa keeps losing

Africa lost $102 billion (R1.3 trillion) in 2015 in illicit financial outflows and other illegal activities, according to the Honest Accounts 2017 report.

The report was put together by a number of nongovernmental organisations, including Global Justice Now, Jubilee Debt Campaign and Groundwork.

“We find that countries in Africa were collectively net creditors to the rest of the world to the tune of $41.3 billion in 2015. Thus much more wealth is leaving the world’s most impoverished continent than is entering it.”

African countries received $161 billion in 2015, which was mainly loans, personal remittances and aid in the form of grants.

“Yet $203 billion was taken from Africa, either directly – mainly through corporations repatriating profits and by illegally moving money out of the continent – or by costs imposed by the rest of the world through climate change,” the report said.

“The figures show that the rest of the world is profiting from the continent’s wealth – more so than most African citizens.”

The report said that multinational companies exported commodities such as minerals from African countries and that their governments often benefited only marginally, receiving very little tax revenue from those companies.

“Money is leaving Africa partly because Africa’s wealth of natural resources is simply owned and exploited by foreign, private corporations,” the report said.