Conference highlights the urgent need for action against rampant tax evasion in Africa

THIS week, I had the honour of attending the 13th Pan-African Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Taxation (PAC) in Sandton, a gathering that reaffirmed what many of us have long known: multinational corporations are bleeding Africa dry, and our people are paying the price.

- DIEKETSENG MALEKE

The theme of this year's conference, Honouring a Legacy, Building the Future, could not have been more fitting. It marked ten years since the release of the High-Level Panel (HLP) Report on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, chaired by former President Thabo Mbeki.

That report was a watershed moment. Before its publication, most conversations around capital flight were narrowly focused on corruption and the misuse of public funds. But the HLP exposed something far more insidious, a global system designed to extract wealth from our continent under the guise of legal corporate practice.

As policy analyst, Abdallah Hamdak rightly says: "This revelation was a wake-up call for the continent. It exposed that illicit financial flows are not merely policy failures, they are symptoms of deliberate global systems that drain Africa's wealth and limit our development."

That is the crux of the matter. These are not unfortunate oversights or accounting errors. They are calculated strategies by powerful multinationals to avoid paying tax in African countries, and the consequences are devastating.