President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has urged African governments to take decisive action against corruption and illicit financial flows that cost the continent more than $580 billion annually.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg in Maputo, Mozambique, Adesina warned that Africa’s growing debt burden — currently approaching $2 trillion — cannot be sustainably addressed without curbing financial leakages.
“It doesn’t matter how much water you pour into a bucket if the bucket is leaking,” he said. “If you’re able to reduce the leakages to illicit capital, corruption and all of these things, Africa will be able to keep a lot of these resources and meet the amount of infrastructure it needs.”
The AfDB estimated in May that Africa loses about $1.6 billion daily to financial leakages, including $90 billion annually to illicit financial flows, $275 billion siphoned off by multinational corporations through profit shifting, and $148 billion lost to corruption.
According to Adesina, tackling these losses is as critical as securing debt relief and concessional financing, given that more than half of African governments now spend more on debt servicing than on public health. The continent faces an annual infrastructure gap of up to $170 billion, he added.
