Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

The cancer of corruption

By Guy Hallowes - posted Tuesday, 19 October 2021


With the recent release of the ‘Pandora Papers’ – 12 million pages recounting how high profile people from all over the world hide their wealth and avoid tax – there is no longer any doubt that corruption is pervasive throughout the world, including Australia.

How does this affect us? In a great number of ways! But let me deal with one area: Africa. Many would say, ‘who cares about Africa, let them do what they like, what they get up to doesn’t matter to us and won’t have any influence on us.’

Wrong.

Advertisement

The BBC and CNN put out all sorts of positive stories about developments in Africa, which are all true, and I wish there were more – but this hides what is really going on.

More funds leave impoverished Africa than are sent there. Some of the funds remitted externally are for legitimate purposes, but a much larger proportion of the funds are the result of corrupt elites hiding their ill-gotten gains offshore.

This occurs year after year. In 2017, USD$203 billion was sent out of Africa and only US$162 billion was remitted to Africa (ref: Karen McVeigh-The Guardian). About one third of those incoming funds were in the form of aid; the rest consisted of either investment capital or, more significantly, funds being remitted from African diaspora living in developed countries. Thus only a small amount is only ever destined for real investment. Meanwhile, the outgoing funds are corrupt elites shovelling funds offshore (ref: ‘Pandora Papers’). Undoubtedly this trend has continued since 2017.

The reasons for this are complicated. Most countries in Africa have a ‘pretend’ or ‘partial’ democracy. There has been enormous population growth throughout Africa, meaning that the provision of services, schools, hospitals, roads, etc, is seen by the elite as a virtually impossible task. Truly independent judiciaries are rare. In many cases the military play a large role in governing the country. Voting systems are often compromised. Many countries are poorly managed. This all results in an almost complete lack of faith in the country; so in order to protect themselves the so-called elites steal what they can to send funds offshore.

Instead of investing money in their own country, African elites thus end up investing funds in the developed world and aiding growth in those countries, not their own. The developed world makes it so easy to transfer funds to innumerable ‘tax havens’ such as Swiss bank accounts, banks in Panama, the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, and many more.

Meanwhile, the Transparency International’s Corruption Index, which measures corruption in 180 countries around the world, offers the following statistics (the higher number having the worse corruption):

Advertisement

South Sudan 179, Nigeria 149, Kenya 124, Ethiopia 94, South Africa 69, Botswana 35.

USA 25.

Australia 11, New Zealand 1.

The corruption in African countries, along with its massive population growth, also results in many thousands of people looking to the developed world for a better chance at life. Every year, thousands of refugees make the hazardous journey across the Sahara desert seeking freedom in other countries, and the demand will grow as Africa’s populations grow. These refugees are in addition to the already large number of people from the Middle East and Afghanistan also looking for refuge.

Why should the developed world (including Australia) worry about this? What can we do about it?

With the advent of the Pandora Papers, it seems obvious that the developed world needs to take more direct action in curtailing money laundering schemes, and the ease offered people from corrupt countries accessing tax havens. The secrecy provisions of Swiss bank accounts also needs to be examined. This should be done anyway, and not just to curtail corrupt transfers from Africa.

African governments also need to be persuaded to tackle the problem of unsustainable population growth in their countries. The population of Africa has grown from about 300 million in 1950 to 1.3 billion today, and it is forecast to grow to 2.5 billion by 2050.

In order to maintain a population (excluding immigration), a country’s fertility rate should be 2.1 children per adult woman; Africa has a fertility rate of 4.69. Compare this to the USA at 1.75, Europe at 1.64, and Australia at 1.8.

Traditionally Africa has always had a high fertility rate. This was because, prior to the introduction of western medicine, African life expectancy at birth was about 30. So in order for parents to have enough live children to care for them as they aged, the perception was that they needed more children – in the hope that one or two would survive. Actual population growth in Africa was close to zero before the advent of western medicine. However, African life expectancy is now about 65, so more people are surviving into adulthood and beyond, which is the major reason for the continent’s high population growth rate.

In any event, it is going to be very difficult for most African countries to seriously address the high birth rates – from a cultural perspective. In the past, many Africans saw the increase in local populations as a weapon against colonial domination, so high birth rates are seen as fundamental to their existence.

So what should be done? As has been suggested in a previous article, maybe a couple of countries with large populations could be selected (say, Nigeria and South Africa) and be ‘persuaded’ with aid packages to address the issues of population growth, and then corruption.

I’m not holding my breath that anything will be done. Western initiatives in Africa will continue to be sabotaged by other countries (such as Russia and China), and the last thing those other countries would want is for developed countries to curtail Africa’s corruption. Also, as has been the case in the past, it seems unlikely that developed countries will do anything substantial for Africa’s money laundering problems and practices leading to corruption, except perhaps window dressing.

The population issue will be put in the ‘too hard basket’, with a ‘let the Africans deal with their own problems’ attitude. Meanwhile the concept that ‘we are dealing with the pandemic and climate change, anything else can wait’ will prevail.

The consequences of this lack of action will be a massive increase in refugees trying to access developed countries. Already 80 million people desperately seek refuge every year, and this does not even include those trying to escape Afghanistan. This number has doubled in the last few years and it is likely to double again.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

7 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Sydney-based Guy Hallowes is the author of Icefall, a thriller dealing with the consequences of climate change. He has also written several novels on the change from Colonial to Majority rule in Africa. To buy browse and buy his books click here.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Guy Hallowes

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 7 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy