IFFs: Akufo-Addo blamed for inefficiencies of EOCO, others

IFFs: Akufo-Addo blamed for inefficiencies of EOCO, others
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Policy analyst and communication expert formerly with the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and chairman for Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, Dr. Emmanuel Steve Manteaw has blamed President Akufo-Addo for the abysmal performance of state investigation and anti-corruption bodies.

He premised his argument on the poor financial allocation to these bodies, established by law to fight crime, particularly economic crimes that are causing the country to lose needed revenue for its stated development.

Dr Manteaw made the statement at a public forum on the role of the media in the fight against illicit financial flows (IFF) in Ghana, organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa in partnership with the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), in Accra last week’s Thursday.

He cited an instance where the Director of EOCO had to fund operations of the Organisation out of her own purse.

A reason, he said the country is bleeding through illicit financial but the anti-corruption agencies – EOCO, Commission on Gunman Rights and Administration Justice (CHRAJ), and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) – watched on helplessly.

Hitherto, he noted that if the government was to adequately resourced these institutions to operate effectively, there would no need for the country to go the International Monetary Fund for US$3 billion bailout or to the international space to beg for scrumps or chicken change. 

Financial leakages

This was as illicit financial flows is causing the country, a great deal of money, since EOCO investigations had established that between 2018 and 2020, 10 gold companies exported gold worth US$1.5 billion without a trace.

Within a period of 17 years, 2000 to 2016,  EOCO discovered that Ghana lost more or a little less than US$19. 5 billion, due to trade miss invoicing, part of illicit financing flows.

Per the Global Financial Integrity 2015 report, Ghana lost about US$40 billion through illicit financial flows between 1962 and 2021.

Despite EOCO claiming it was collaborating with the Economic Strategy and Research Division of the Ministry of Finance, Ghana Revenue Authority, Financial Intelligence Center, and the Auditor General, Dr Manteaw finds it difficult to appreciate where it may end with adequate resources to plug these holes, the cancer still continues to eat up the state resources.

But Abdullai Bashiru Dapilah, Head of Organised Crime at EOCO and a member of the illicit financial flows unit at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, explained how these funds were leaving the or coming in without a trace.

He first blamed the poor checks at the banks, as one major contributor to illicit financial flows.

According to him, gold companies, especially, owned by foreigners or expatriates use forex bureaus to commit these crimes through falsified documents.

“…we have also identified that most of the vehicles that these illicit financial flows criminals use are the Forex bureaus. And what they also do is that because it is a requirement by the Bank of Ghana for them to walk through all their transactions, through their financial statements or bank accounts, they open individual or personal accounts and these people you see them sitting by the forex bureaus, that is what they do. Almost all of them have accounts.

“If you wants to transfer money outside Ghana, you just go and see them and they will give you their accounts, you put in the money and falsify the commercial invoice between the forex and the receiving company…,” he disclosed.

Mr Dapilah stated that while it takes banks 90 days to act when a document is falsified, the criminals had already completed with the illicit trade.

In one particular case, he cited that the documents were falsified, in a manner that the person claimed he or she was importing goods into the country but when checks were run, no goods were imported and this transaction amounted to US$1.8 million.

It, therefore, explains why international reports suggest that Ghana exports gold more than it has on record.

He said much of the problem had also been identified in the fishing industry, which is dominated by Chinese nationals.

According to him, the Chinese concealed this act by registering fishing vessels in the names of indigenes and on the sideline, would enter into a sale and purchase agreement with them. 

Therefore, before a fishing vessel arrives in Ghana, it is in the name of an indigene who ordinarily might not have the financial capacity to procure or own such an asset.

He continued that the real owner or owners of the vessel are revealed after a catch is made and the fishes are brought onshore to be sold.
The Chinese would, therefore, success in paying no taxes are to the state.

What is illicit activity

Mr Dapilah explained that illicit activities are committed with the objective of earning wealth illegally by an individual or a group in an organised manner, thereby violating existing legislations governing economic activities of corporate institutions, government and its administration.

These economic crimes include any form of fraud, illegal arms deal, smuggling, illegal mining, tax evasion, foreign exchange malpractices including counterfeiting, counterfeiting of foreign currency, dumping of toxic waste and prohibited goods.

In the context of illicit financial flows, the crimes that are associated or identified with it are transfers where  an entity tries to be the system through trade miss invoicing, tax fraud, money laundering among other things.

Effects

Mohammed Mahamud, accountability Governance Programme Lead for Oxfam Ghana, said illicit financial flows has an overreaching impact on health and education, since it is complex and multidimensional issue that focuses more on how funds leakage through the system.

This, therefore, denies government the fiscal space to road in the required development for the country and its people. In fact, it iwas described as economic sabotage.

 Challenges

The anti-corruption and the investigation bodies lack autonomy, proactiveness, and logistics to act.
Similarly, these economic saboteurs are powerful people wielding police and economic powers, as movers and shakers of this country, using their influence to make these bodies’ operations ineffective.
Prevention.

Mr Dapilah charged journalists to increase public awareness and expose harmful tax practices, frame issues in a simplified and digestible format for public consumption, raise popular narratives, help in putting issues on government agenda, and enable citizens better appreciate these issues.

The Director of Research and Advocacy a MFWA, Dr Koko Impraim, added that there was a need for an improve media reportage in fighting illicit financial flows in the country, to help government stop it.

A call was made for depoliticised EOCO and the other  investigation bodies to perform their duties with a free hand.

Response from Journalists

Most of the journalists who participated in the workshop tabled the challenges barring them to live up to expectation.

Members of the inky fraternity said some of these corporate institutions that are indulged in financial malpractices sponsor some of their employers, hence making it difficult for the ordinary journalist to live up to the requirements of the profession.

Other concerns had to do with legal threats, withdrawal of sponsorship and even threat of death, in the face of poor remuneration or not being paid, and other poor conditions of service including luck of logistics, protection and resources.

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