High Level Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Good Tax Governance: Address by Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan
- Inter-Agency Cooperation and Good Tax Governance in Africa
- South Africa Ministry of Finance 2016
- 9p.
This is the address by Mr Pravin Gordhan, South African minister of Finance at the occasion of the High Level Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Good Tax Governance hosted by the University of Pretoria where he called on Africa to reinforce laws and policing to limit the amount of illicit financial money leaving the continent as this reduces the amount of resources available to Africa to invest in order to generate jobs and provide critical social services to citizens. He revealed that Africa lost about $50bn annually to illicit financial flows and this compromised the continent’s ability to provide economic and human development. Illicit financial flows, tax evasion and transfer pricing were the major contributors to South Africa’s and Africa’s tax gap and they remain a threat to the continent’s development agenda. Capital flight not only drains domestic wealth, but it also exacerbates inequality and facilitates crime and corruption. Gordhan highlighted that good tax governance and strong cooperation between law enforcement agencies and tax authorities were essential elements in effectively countering corruption, bribery and illicit flows.
