Trade-based Money Laundering rackets have been costing Tanzania more than USD 1.5 billion annually in lost revenues.
Also, it has been observed that 90 percent of the monetary foreign aid being pumped into the country gets siphoned out again and sent back overseas through illegal streaming by culprits.
“Most large foreign companies and entities have been injecting billions of money into Tanzania, though not exactly for the country but rather for their own benefits,” stated the Chairperson of the Tanzania Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice, Abdullah Ali Mwinyi
“What they do is just to take advantage of the weaknesses in the legal systems dealing with investment contracts policies and regulations,” he added.
The Executive Director of Policy Forum Semkae Kilonzo, expressed concern that between USD 50 and USD 80 billion are being illegally pumped out annually smuggled outside the African continent, the deprived move that weakens the countries financial capability to spur their economies.
The country has however just joined the African Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice (APNIFFT), a move projected to give the country a fresh impetus to spearhead the fight against illegal cash streams.
The African Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax (APNIFFT) is a network of members of Parliament from across the continent that have expressed a desire and commitment to spearhead the fight against illicit financial flows in Africa.
Gracing the recent launch of the Tanzania Chapter for African Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flow and Tax Justice (APNIFFT) the Deputy speaker, Mussa Hazzan Zungu expressed high expectations that the development will play a meaningful role to assist the country address the malignant problem.
“Tanzania, like most of the Sub-Saharan African countries is experiencing challenges of having the country’s prestigious resources and needed revenues being smuggled outside by some unfaithful investors companies through tax cheating,” Zungu stated.
Thus, becoming an active member of APNIFFT, the country’s lawmakers will now join hands with their counterparts from other countries to set and implement useful campaigns for ensuring Tanzania is benefiting accordingly from its resources endowments, and not otherwise.
So far, the speaker said the government has set good investment policies which focus to attain the win-win situation between Tanzania and the foreign investment companies, informed that more efforts are however being put in place to better the side.
“Oil and gas, and minerals stands among the country’s key economic sectors, and they’re the ones that most of the investors are using as their windows to parasite our economy and revenues,” the deputy speaker said.
The chairperson of the African Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice (APNIFFT), Dr Khanyisile Tshabalala from South Africa, said it was disconcerting to see the African continent, the bedrock for all prestigious minerals in the globe continues to suffer from poverty at
According to the Economic Development in Africa Report 2020 by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Africa loses about USD 88.6 billion, which is 3.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), annually in illicit financial flows.
And the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its Strategic Vision for Africa 2030 launched in February 2021, notes that illicit financial flows remain a key impediment to Africa’s attainment of the 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063.
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