Mbeki Panel has disclosed that Nigeria and other countries in West and North Africa have lost at least $407 billion to trade mispricing between 2001 and 2010, a situation that was driven largely by commercial tax avoidance by multinational corporations, reports Business Today NG.
The Mbeki Panel, established by the AU and UNECA, identified IFFs as a major threat to Africa’s development, security, and governance, particularly in undermining public investments in critical sectors such as education, health, and the management of natural resources.
A member of Mbeki Panel also known the African Union (AU)/United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa, Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida, made this disclosure during her keynote address at the National Conference on Illicit Financial Flows held in Abuja on Tuesday, 22 July, 2025.
According to Ovonji-Odida, the panel’s investigations found that tax avoidance accounted for 65 percent of all illicit financial flows from the continent, translating to about $407 billion lost due to trade mispricing alone in the space of a decade.
She also disclosed that that organised crime was responsible for 30 percent of IFFs, while official bribery and corruption in government circles contributed 5 percent.
Ovonji-Odida explained that the panel took a broader view of IFFs than many Western-led institutions, which often focus narrowly on corruption and organised crime.
Instead, the AU-backed initiative examined how legal mechanisms are routinely exploited by global corporations, financial intermediaries, and professional enablers to avoid paying taxes where profits are generated.
“These practices may not always be illegal, but they subvert the intent of tax laws and exploit mismatches between national legal frameworks to avoid tax liabilities, often depriving African countries of vital revenues, ” she noted
To tackle these challenges, the Mbeki Panel proposed a number of global tax reform measures, including the negotiation of a UN Tax Convention, the automatic exchange of financial information, transparency of beneficial ownership, and country-by-country reporting by multinational enterprises. The panel also called for more effective asset recovery strategies to retrieve stolen wealth from foreign jurisdictions.
