Group suggests stronger anti-corruption initiatives in Africa

The Centre for African Democratic Affairs (CADA) on Tuesday called for the introduction of an “Economic Crime Against Humanity” law in African countries to try rulers who have caused their people to die needlessly through bad governance and dysfunctional leadership.

“If killing a million people in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, for instance, constitutes a crime then it should also be a crime to cause millions of innocent Africans, especially the vulnerable ones like children and the elderly to die either from hunger and malnutrition, extreme poverty or through the lack of adequate healthcare because of misrule and corruption”, it argued.

CADA made the call in a report signed by Mr Frank Adarkwah-Yiadom, Executive Director of the Centre and copied to the Ghana News Agency ahead of this year’s commemoration of African Union (AU) Day which falls on May 25.

It noted that in spite of significant advances made by several African countries since the inception of the AU in 2002, the continent continued to be hampered by high incidence of corruption and extreme poverty that cost the continent billions of dollars a year and slowed down economic growth and over all development.

While attributing the trend to domestic factors such as entrenched cronyism, nepotism, the rise in organized crime, and the behavior of international companies and unscrupulous local collaborators, the report also blamed leadership failure on the continent on “the sweeping powers that African leaders have continued to arrogate to themselves even in an era of democracy”.

The report observed that the high hopes that swept across the continent following the birth of the AU was giving way to some gloom and desperation.

It made reference to an action plan by the international community that called for the ratification and subsequent implementation of the United Nations (UN) Convention against Corruption which made it a crime in all Western countries, including the UN, to bribe public officials.

The adoption of a similar action plan in Africa, according to the report, would help to curb corruption which remained one of the major obstacles in the fight against poverty, building democracy and accelerating economic growth on the continent.

Source: GNA