Corruption is global and not peculiar to Africa – Akinwumi Adesina

President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina has said that corruption is not an issue peculiar to just Africa. 

During an interview with the UK Guardian, Adesina noted that corruption is high in the financial and economic sectors in Europe, while places like Eritrea in East Africa has zero per cent corruption.

He however stated that the African continent needs to continue to improve accountability in the use of public resources. Adesina said; 

“The global financial crisis that brought the world down in 2008, was not in Africa. We have no Wall Street. That collapse came from greed, from corruption, from fraud.

“You have people cooking the books that are in the financial industry in Europe, not in Africa. Corruption is not an African issue.

“The issue is, that is not to say that there’s none. What you have to do is to continue to improve transparency, and accountability in the use of public resources.

“During my first visit to Eritrea, I was talking to UN Development Programme staff. You know what they told me? That, in Eritrea, corruption is zero percent.

“Why do we not talk about that? That’s the kind of thing that we want to do. For us as a development bank, we take good governance very seriously.”

Adesina also accused multinational companies of backing illegal capital flows in Africa, adding that there is a need to beam a searchlight in that direction. He also said that the AfDB ensures that when countries take funds from them, they support such countries to account for the resources.

He also said that for Africa to move up the value chain, it has to place value on its raw materials including oil and gas, minerals, metals and food.