The Malawi Economic Justice Network
(MEJN) has disclosed that illicit financial flows are affecting they growth of
the country's economy.
MEJN Executive Director Dalitso
Kubalasa made the remarks in Lilongwe on Tuesday during the 2nd Meeting of the
African Parliamentarian on illicit financial flows and tax (APNIFFT) which was
aimed at strategizing and brainstorming and recruiting the new Members of
Parliament (MPs) on the APNIFFT.
"Illicit financial flows are responsible
for draining the country of resources for development and are detrimental to
revenue mobilization efforts. Abusive transfer pricing and related commercial
activities attributed to multinational companies operating on the continent
represent a significant source of this outflow.
"The net outflows from
developing countries including the proceeds of tax evasion, outweigh inflows of
aid and investment," he said.
APNIFFT aims at providing a platform
for African parliamentarians to undertake sustained advocacy related dialogue
and debate in a simplified manner on Illicit Financial Flows, tax governance
and domestic resource mobilization on the African continent, informed by
research and inclusive of a wide variety of voices with links to national and
regional processes.
Speaker of Malawi National Assembly
Richard Msowoya said Africa and Malawi in particular can not afford to be
loosing large amounts of money due to financial flows and tax in tail at a time
when leaders need to put much emphasis on development.
"A lot of money that the so
called foreign investors make as profits do not remain in the country.
Sometimes, we are also the one authorizing tax invasion and corruption. For
example, if we look at the money lost through cash gate, we could have had some
remarkable developments by now.
"If we look around, where there
is dust there is still dust, where there was a pot hole there is still a pot
hole, where there was hunger people are still dying of hunger, where there was
no water people are still thirsty and where children were dying due to lack of
medication, they are still dying of the same. We as MPs really need to curd
this malpractice," he said.
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