Bank leads fight against corruption

The African Development Bank (Af DB) has taken on the challenge of combating corruption which, it estimates, drains $10 billion a year from African economies.That is money which should be spent on resources such as infrastructure development, business support, healthcare, and education. In 2008, the Af DB and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) established the Joint Initiative to Support Business Integrity and Anti-Bribery Efforts in Africa. Speaking in September at a bank-sponsored seminar attended by anti-corruption experts, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, director of the Governance and Economic Reforms Department (ECGF), said "the fight against corruption is not just a question of good governance, but is, most importantly, a means of driving economic growth across the continent". He added that corruption eroded investor confidence and stressed that the battle against corruption had to be at the core of development strategies for Africa.Eric Ogunleye, director of the African Development Institute, described corruption as “a cancer that stif les economic growth and undermines the rule of law, at a time when development financing needs are vast”.Delegates agreed that there were persistent challenges to the recovery of stolen assets.According to Simon Marsh, senior investigation specialist at the Basel Institute on Governance, a key obstacle is that while "it's easy to transfer money, getting it back involves months or sometimes years of proceedings”.Kodjo Attisso, regional adviser at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said Glencore's case, in which it was found guilty of corruption in several African countries, illustrated the current lack of coordination between nations in tackling these challenges. The experts called for greater political will and investment in new asset-tracking technologies to strengthen Africa's anti-corruption efforts.Corruption persists despite the ratification by 48 of the 55 countries on the continent of The African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, which was drawn up in 2018.The AU has since designated July 11 as the African Anti-Corruption Day.In the Southern African Development Community, eSwatini is the only country which has not signed the convention.There are a number of other anti-corruption initiatives in Africa.Business Action Against Corruption is described as a working partnership between governments, civil society and business in the area of governance, with the objective of reducing corruption in Africa. It is being implemented in 10 African countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. ER