N3 Trillion Stolen By Nigerian Leaders In 10 Years

A Washington-based research and advocacy organization, Global Financial Integrity, has released a report which ranks Nigeria at 7th out of 20 biggest exporters with illicit financial flow for decades with $19.66bn or N3.047trillion.

It said that the amount of N3trillion laundered was by Nigerian leaders who had access to public funds for 10 years from 2000 to 2010.


The report, which was co-authored by GFI’s Lead Economist, Dev Kar, and GFI’s Economist, Sarah Freitas, is the first by the organisation in incorporating a new, more conservative estimate of illicit financial flows.

It facilitates comparisons with previous estimates from GFI updates and identifies crime, corruption and tax evasion as biggest channels with nearly $6tn stolen from poor countries.

According to the report, China is ranked number one with $274bn average ($2.74tn cumulative); followed by Mexico with $47.6bn average ($476bn cumulative); Malaysia, $28.5bn average ($285bn cumulative); Saudi Arabia, $21.0bn average ($210bn cumulative); Russia, $15.2bn average ($152bn cumulative); and Philippines, $13.8bn average ($138bn cumulative).

The report said:

“Astronomical sums of dirty money continue to flow out of the developing world and into offshore tax havens and developed country banks. Regardless of the methodology, it is clear that developing economies are haemorrhaging more and more money at a time when rich and poor nations alike are struggling to spur economic growth.

“This report should be a wake-up call to world leaders that more must be done to address these harmful outflows. The estimates provided by either methodology are still likely to be extremely conservative as they do not include trade mispricing in services, same-invoice trade mispricing, secret transactions, and dealings conducted in bulk cash. This means that much of the proceeds of drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other criminal activities, which are often settled in cash, are not included in these estimates.”

The report went on to state that $858.8bn of illicit outflows lost in 2010, was a significant uptick from 2009, which saw developing countries lose $776.0bn under the new methodology.

“This has very big consequences for developing economies. Poor countries lost nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to invest in healthcare, education, and infrastructure. It’s nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to pull people out of poverty and save lives,” it said.

Source : Theheraldng.com