CSO urged to help uproot corporate corruption

Akim Oda (ER), Dec. 21, GNA- The Executive Director of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Bishop Akolgo, has appealed to Civil Society Organization (CSO) to assist in uprooting corporate corruption in Ghana. He said Ghana, like many developing countries is suffering from corporate misbehaviour in the form of "invoicing, tax havens, money laundering" and in some cases, "losses in tax competition and tax avoidance" that alone could cost the continent nearly twenty billion dollars over a period.

Speaking at a workshop on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) at Akim Oda in the Birim South District of the Eastern Region on Wednesday, Mr Akolgo advocated a searchlight on corporate behavior in relation to taxation and profit sharing, especially in the area of natural resource extraction. He said it has become imperative for CSO to shift attention to maximizing and retaining domestic sources of finance so as to help reduce the incidence of corporate corruption in the form of money laundering and mis-invoicing. He wondered why African states should be saddled with the debt of over 182 billion dollars since the continent still command much natural resources which could be exploited for the benefit of the people if there was much transparency in the conduct of state and international business.

Bishop Akolgo attributed such a state of affairs to a number of "myths" that, he said, erroneously sought to assert that developing countries must definitely liberalize their economies and seek expatriate investments before they attract foreign capital. But trade liberalization, he pointed out, will not always lead to welfare gains nor economic growth and cited the scenario of mining communities in the country now living in squalor and dehumanizing circumstances despite the extraction of minerals in those places. According to Bishop Akolgo, foreign direct investments often lead to the loss of tax competition and revenue, and cited figures from the World Bank that indicated that Sub-Saharan Africa has lost nearly 20 billion dollars owing to tax avoidance and tax competition.

Bishop Akolgo requested honest and efficient conduct on part of public officials in relation to procurement, financial management and accountability. He appealed to civil society groups to, especially define, articulate and defend fiscal regimes that would encourage revenue stability and oppose pressures to promote unilateral liberalization and privatization of essential public services. Civil society groups, Bishop Akolgo said, must stop the World Bank from re-writing mining laws that seek to reduce government revenues.