Prime Minister Cameron: G8 to support developing countries

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on Saturday, pledged that the G8 would provide financial and human resource towards the leveraging of the development agenda of developing countries.

He said: “We in the developed countries need the political will to support the developing countries to harness their potentials to the fullest in their various development agenda.”

Prime Minister Cameron made the promise when he moderated the plenary discussion for four countries that he invited to participate in this year’s G8 Summit on the theme: “Trade, Tax and Transparency in London.

The event was attended by dignitaries, diplomats from the African continent and other developing nations in the world.

He said the G8 considers carefully issues on trade, tax and transparency because they were interlinked,

Prime Minister Cameron said they could help states to adopt measures that would spur the growth of their economies and ensure political stability.

“A transparent system can help to promote the payment of taxes, and the payment of taxes can also help various states to effectively participate in intra and inter-continental trade that could yield financial resources for their development,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the G8 would also support developing countries to drastically reduce corruption, which had over the years served as the bane for development and growth, by encouraging the states to build strong anti-corruption institutions.

He said: “corruption is wrong because, it starves the poor and deprives the citizenry of their right and responsibilities.”

Prime Minister Cameron called on developing countries to institute stringent measures to help fight tax evasion as tax was the major income of developed countries over the years.

He, however, commended Ghana, Senegal, Congo and Tanzania for instituting elaborate measures to fight corruption, tax evasion and to ensure transparency in the delivery of good governance and democracy.

Prime Minster Cameron said: “Payment of taxes is part of justice and fairness in every democracy, and developing countries need to leverage their democracies and economies.”

He said the United Kingdom would lead the G8 with the crusade against corruption and tax evasion, to spur developing countries to achieve their developmental goals by the year 2022.

The Prime Minister said the G8 relations with developing countries would be engineered by trade links that would be fair and draw equity among trading nations in the coming years.

“Now is the time, and this is the time for Africa and developing countries to tackle their growth and development agenda,” he said.

President Mahama said Ghana had embarked on massive transparency measures by requiring the Minister of Finance to give financial reports through Parliament every year, approving the right to information bill and the signing onto the Extractive Industries, Transparency Initiative.