Illicit Financial Flows: Media Foundation for West Africa engages media, GRA, others on progressive revenue mobilization

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has organized a forum to discuss illicit financial flows (IFFs) and ways to boost tax revenue collection in Ghana.

IFFs refer to illegal cross-border money movements including tax evasion, corruption, and terrorist financing, according to the IMF.

The event held at the GNAT Hall in Accra on Wednesday, October 4, aimed at highlighting the role of the media and other stakeholders in "strengthening progressive taxation, domestic resource mobilisation and combating illicit financial flows.”

In his remarks, Archibald Adams of OXFAM Ghana noted that "a win against IFFs is equally a win to alleviate inequality and poverty."

EOCO lamented that "the nation loses millions of US dollars through [IFFs] annually."

In his keynote address, Assistant Commissioner Dominic Naab, representing Commissioner General Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, noted that "revenue collection remains a challenge for GRA due to issues such as IFFs."

"Several compliance tools introduced by GRA have been met with resistance from the public," he lamented.

Professor Bishop Akolgo of the UNCTAD and Ghana Statistical Service, during the panel discussion, analysed the channels through which IFFs occur, such as "trade, banking systems, government procurement."

He noted that "drug dealers mostly resort to winning government contracts to exchange their illegal money for legal ones."

Financial Intelligence Centre Head Seth Amoako assured: "measures are being put in place to combat various IFFs, particularly money laundering."

On her part, Ghana Integrity Initiative's Mary Addah bemoaned that "the laws in Ghana...fight against and punish the less-privileged but leave those in high authority."

Raymond Acquah of Accra-based JoyNews emphasized the media's role in exposing suspicious behavior to curb further IFFs but lamented the lack of adequate cooperation.

He also called for more things to be done to get many media practitioners abreast with tax issues to be able to create more awareness among the citizenry.

He, however, averred that the media would do the needful by reporting on tax issues while urging his colleagues to help champion the efforts in improving domestic revenue mobilisation.

The engaging forum, moderated by TV3’s Alfred Occansey highlighted the costs of IFFs to Ghana's development and the need for concerted efforts from all stakeholders to boost tax income and sever illicit financial flows.

Key stakeholders in attendance included the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), OXFAM Ghana, Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), the media and others.