Since the 1960’s a new “Scramble for Africa” has been taking place among the world’s big powers, who are not only tapping into the continent of Africa for its oil and mineral resources but also providing safe-haven for our African leaders to loot billions of dollars and store them in Western banks.

In 1999, debt service payments from Africa, the poorest region in the world, to rich Western countries totaled $35.7 billion. The painful truth is that African governments squander, waste, and consume many of the loaned funds and there is little to show for the enormous African debt.

It is interesting to note that while the West always talk about corruption by African leaders they never mention that those who allow their territories to be used as depositories for these monies are complacent in this apparent conspiracy and corruption. In an online debate among Ghana Leadership Union of July 29, 2005, Professor George Ayittey of America University cited, “Africa experiences capital flight of up to $90 billion a year and the external stock of capital held by Africa’s political elites is $700 billion-800 billion.”

Why is nobody talking about helping to repay Africa’s foreign debt by repatriating the looted money corrupt African elites had hidden abroad? The Western countries that benefit from these stolen funds should be made to put an end to supporting these criminal activities.

We must seek UN mandated sanctions to make looting of state assets by corrupt leaders a crime under international law. While it is right/good to acknowledge the kind gesture of debt relief, it is even more important for Westerners and mostly these Christians who claim they want to help to get to the root of the problem.

The efforts of Africa’s benefactors must go hand in hand with curbing the unethical practices of these Multi-national corporations and foreign banks. Western countries are part of Africa’s problem of corruption in government and must, therefore, be part of the solution.

International financial systems, dominated by Western banks are operating to the pernicious disadvantage of many African countries. While sub-Saharan Africa is the object of the West’s charitable concern, billions of dollars worth of natural resources are being removed from it by Western banks. The practices of some foreign commercial banks are of a questionable nature.

For instance, Britain’s HSBC bank has been accused by a US Senate committee of helping President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea of moving cash from the country’s oil revenues into financial “black holes” in Luxembourg and Cyprus (The Guardian, June 1, 2005).

One could justifiably come out with a lengthy list of charges and dubious financial transactions involving many African political elites.

According to Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, which has been prominent in urging reform, “Western companies and banks have colluded in stripping Africa’s resources” (The Guardian, June 1, 2005).

It is common knowledge that highly placed African government officials extort commissions on foreign loan contracts and deposit them in overseas banks. We can argue relentlessly that Western banks, acting as monopolists, have cornered credit markets and callously extracted exorbitant interest charges from destitute, problem-plagued African countries that could ill afford to pay them.

According to Herman Cohen, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African Affairs in 1991, an estimated $20 billion more than what Africa receives in foreign aid flees Africa annually (Africa Insider, July 1994; p.4). This is criminal, and it is intentionally being supported clandestinely by American and Western governments. Africans are aware. Ghana leadership Union is asking these nations to stop and stop now!

According to records/sources available, Eyadema’s personal fortune was 800 billion CFA francs ($2.8 billion) most of which has been put into foreign banks (online, http://freeafrica.org/looting.html). The Angolan Government earns around $3.5 billion from oil sales but “The bulk of the money bypasses the budget, disappearing straight into the hands of the presidency (The Economist, Jan 15, 2000; p.48).

President Kenneth Kaunda the architect of Zambia’s socialist ideology of humanism is alleged to have transferred $6 billion in state funds to personal bank accounts abroad (New York Times, Aug 15, 1990; p. A6). In Kenya, critics of the Moi government say that many of the people in government have the biggest accounts in foreign banks and that there is more money from Kenyans in foreign banks than the entire Kenyan foreign debt, which is about $8 billion” (Washington Times August 3, 1995; p.A18).

In 1990 , Mr. Mouloud Hamrouche prime minister of Algeria and officials of the then ruling Front de Liberation National pocketed $26 billion in bribes and commissions on foreign contracts (The Economist, April 14, 1990; p. 51). Moussa Traore, a former head of state of Mali is reported to have looted the country to amass a personal fortune worth over $2 billion—an amount equal to the size of Mali’s foreign debt (West Africa, May 4-10, 1992; p. 746).

In 1988, France sent $2,591 million in aid to Africa, but in the same year, CFA 3.5 billion (47 percent of the total issue) was exchanged in Europe by the Bank of France, some of it exported in suitcases (The Washington Times, June 19, 1990). It is quite obvious that these former Colonial governments and their western allies were prepared to rob Africa blind, and it is time the UN did something if the members are sincere. [It is a shame that most of these officials claim to be Christian or at least religious on a personal level].

Corrupt African officials have looted billions of dollars from their countries and the financial drain continues. Billions in export earnings from oil, gas, diamonds and other minerals are never openly accounted for.

The G8, as well as all countries whose banks are acting as a safe-haven for these criminal African political elite MUST do everything possible to expatriate stolen funds back to the various Africa countries. Failing that they should not be surprised if this complicity in crime catches up to them one day when Africans wake up in mass revolutions and capture these traitors and enact justice.

As observed by Simon Taylor, it is crucial that Africa is helped to track revenues from oil, mining and logging into national budgets to make sure that the money isn’t siphoned off by corrupt officials”(The Guardian, June 1, 2005). It is urgent we deprive the corrupt African leaders from finding somewhere to stash their loot.

1.All must desist from accommodating the ill and acrimonious behaviors at the expense of the ordinary African if they are sincere in helping Africa fight poverty.

2.The route to stashing money in foreign bank accounts must be blocked, and picture Identities must be obtained for opening bank accounts just as is done in these Western countries.

3.Western Corporations and officials who circumvent the controls and regulations, and take advantage of the loopholes created by the ruling African elite must be regarded as criminal under international law and must be arrested when found and face trial under any courts in the world or the international court of justice.

4. The UN must help Africa save lives and reduce the acute poverty (cycle) inflicted by these Multi-national banks and the nefarious African political elite in anyway an action can be launched at the international level to force this issue.

Ghana Leadership Union is working to eradicate corruption in public service in Ghana and this author wishes that charges would finally be brought against Western Banks that aid and abet these perpetrators in exerting a drag on Africa’s rate of development and frustrating efforts to alleviate widespread squalor and poverty.