Doing Business in Africa
Perhaps one of the most interesting videos I have watched in a while. Nigeria’s first Female finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (click for bio) and her efforts to return stolen money to her Homeland. Corruption as she puts it is one of the first thing many think of when it comes to Africa. In her frankly right view she believes this is a negative stereotype and is working together with the World Bank to secure the Billions of dollars stolen by corrupt officials and transferred into high interest savings accounts in Europe.
One of the interesting points she makes during the video is that recovering the stolen assets has significance far beyond the actually money involved.**
The World Bank estimates that the cross border flow of global proceeds from criminal activities (such in the case of former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha) such as corruption, fraud, and tax evasion is between $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion. Another interesting point is that 25% of the GDP of African states such as Nigeria is lost to corruption every year at a cost of around $148 billion.
**For some bizarre reason the Stop button has disappeared…
