By Lamin Jahateh
The rapid and sustained economic
growth and financial expansion across economies in West Africa have provide
fertile ground for large-scale corruption and profit-motivated crimes.
The 2013 annual report of the
Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa
(GIABA), released on Monday, said West African countries witnessed major
political, economic and social developments in 2013.
Prominent among these developments,
according to the report, is the continued macro-economic growth and the
expansion of the financial sector. Specifically, West Africa is projected
to post an average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 6.7 per cent and 7.4
per cent in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
“The evidence, economic and
financial growth provide a fertile ground for large-scale corruption and
profit-motivated crimes unless it is accompanied by far-reaching reforms in
governance,” GIABA said.
Besides, the fact that this growth
has not generated corresponding levels of employment means that many young
people still suffer high unemployment, with attendant consequences for crime
and other social problems.
Most insecure region
The GIABA reported noted that West
Africa has suffered from a number of terrorist activities, regardless of strong
national and regional counter-terrorism efforts.
Deadly Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist
organizations – Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating in the north
of Mali, and Ansar Dine and Boko Haram operating in the north of Nigeria and in
parts of Niger – stepped up vicious campaigns of terror (mass killings,
kidnappings, abductions and attacks on vital economic installations), making
Sahelian West Africa one of the most insecure regions in the world.
Fertile land for money
laundering
The annual report also noted that
terrorism, trafficking in arms, drugs and people, and other transnational forms
of organised crime are threatening security in Africa’s vast sub-Saharan Sahel
region.
It said these conditions provide the
fertile ground on which money laundering and terrorist financing thrive.
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