Dear Hon. Moussa Faki Mahama,
We welcome the African Union’s 2018 theme, Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation. It provides a critical opportunity to make progress in the fight against corruption and to mitigate its corrosive impacts on prosperity, growth, security and the fight against extreme poverty. We urge the African Union and Member States to seize this opportunity and deliver meaningful anti-corruption commitments at the July Summit.
The African Union’s focus on combating corruption comes at a critical juncture. African citizens consistently place corruption among their top concerns. Corruption among government officials and bureaucracies has increased over the last decade according to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. The Panama Papers and other recent investigative leaks have exposed numerous flaws in anticorruption regimes across the continent. The 2015 report issued by the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, led by former President Thabo Mbeki, estimated that more than US$50 billion illicitly flows out of the continent every year.
To rebuild citizen trust in governments and to enable citizens and governments to work together to build a better future, citizens must be able to track budgets and follow the money from resources to results. An independent media, citizens and appropriate judicial and legislative checks and balances must be able to hold leaders accountable.
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