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FG seeks global help to repatriate stolen funds
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday appealed to the international community to help African countries repatriate stolen funds.
He said they should also help stop and track illicit financial flow from the continent.
Osinbajo made the appeal in an address he delivered during the plenary session of the on-going third United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development holding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
According to a statement made available to journalists by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the vice president identified corruption as a major impediment to development.
He underscored the need for the global community to adopt concerted efforts against the scourge.
“This conference must come up with a mechanism for dismantling safe havens and the return of stolen funds and assets to the countries of origin as mandated in the United Nations Conventions Against Corruption and Transnational Organised Crime,” the vice president was quoted as saying.
He also called on global leaders, experts and the international community to pay attention to the plight of the poor across the world.
He argued that the promotion of social inclusion is central to issues of development.
Osinbajo recalled that during the last global financial crisis, nations and governments worked out a bailout that took them out of the situation, and then wondered that “if we can bail out the rich, why not bail out the poor who have neither voice nor representation?”
He urged the leaders to develop and implement unconventional social safety nets to address the scourge of poverty, hunger, disease and misery.
He said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was committed to setting appropriate spending targets on social services to address poverty, hunger, inequality and unemployment particularly among the youths.
Osinbajo also asked the international community to develop a viable mechanism to deal with the scourge of terrorism as it addresses all aspects of human security for a truly sustainable development.
He said global terrorism constitutes a potent threat to peace, stability and economic development of countries worldwide.
The threat, he said, calls for adequate funding, partnership and collaboration of the global community to combat terrorism, extremism and insurgency.
“We must take parallel action to intensify efforts towards blocking all sources of funding for terrorist activities,” he added.
Osinbajo also called for the establishment of a Global Fund for Educational Development on the same scale as the UN Global Fund to Fight AIDS and other major diseases.
Such a fund, which, he said, should support universal free and quality primary education, especially in developing countries, will, according to him, “make a difference in our world in the next fifteen years. It should replicate the successes registered by the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.”
Earlier, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, while delivering his opening address to delegates, said the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda would be a critical step towards sustainable development and the beginning of a new era of cooperation and global partnership.
He noted that the Action Agenda as an ambitious financing framework has the capacity to put the world on the right path to implement the post-2015 development agenda and the sustainable development goals.
