UK pledges support for developing countries
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday pledged the support of G8 to leverage the development agenda of developing countries, by providing them with financial and human resources.
He said: “We in the developed countries need the political will to support the developing countries to harness their potentials to the fullest in their various development agenda.”
Prime Minister Cameron made the pledge when he moderated the plenary discussion for four countries that he invited to participate in this year’s G8 Summit on the theme: “Trade, Tax and Transparency.”
He said the G8 carefully chose, trade, tax and transparency because they are interlink and therefore could help the states to adopt measures that could spur the growth of their economies and ensure political stability.
“A transparent system can help to promote the payment of taxes and the payment of taxes can also help various states to effectively participate in intra and inter-continental trade that could yield financial resources for their development,” he added.
The Prime Minister said G8 would also support the developing countries to drastically reduce corruption, which had over the years served as the bane for development and growth by encouraging the building of strong anti-corruption institutions around the globe.
“Corruption is wrong because, it starves the poor and deprives the citizenry of their right and responsibilities.”
He called on the developing countries to institute stringent measures that would help them fight tax evasion, as revenue had been the major income of developed countries over the years in their development agenda.
Prime Minister Cameron, commended Ghana, Senegal, Congo and Tanzania, for instituting elaborative measures to fight against corruption, tax evasion and to ensure transparency in the delivery of good governance and democracy.
He said: “Payment of taxes is part of justice and fairness in every democracy and developing countries need to leverage their democracies and economies.”
Mr Cameron said the United Kingdom would lead the G8 to the crusade against corruption and tax evasion to spur the developing countries to achieve their developing goals by 2022.
“Now is the time, and this is the time for Africa and developing countries to tackle their growth and development agenda,” he added.
President Mahama said Ghana had embarked on massive transparency measures by requiring the Minister of Finance to give financial reports through parliament every year, approving the right to information bill and the signing on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
Source: GNA