The Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS, has identified corruption and financial crimes as major obstacles to the region’s economic and social development, calling for stronger institutional capacity to combat the growing threat.
Speaking at the opening of a five-day regional certification training on financial investigation for anti-corruption institutions in West Africa in Abuja, the ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, Abdel-Fatau Musah, said that despite democratic progress, corruption remains a significant threat to governance and development in many member states.
Citing a research report, Musah, who was represented by the commission’s head of the democracy and good governance division, Ebenezer Asiedu, said Africa loses 88.6 billion dollars annually to corruption and illicit financial crimes.
He added that this amounts to 3.7 percent of the continent’s GDP.