International justice: some African countries are hurting

Some African countries are hurting badly, as we learnt at the end of last year during our visit to Kenya to participate in a regional dialogue on contract negotiation and fiscal policies in the extractive industries. The dialogue had been organised by NEPAD which is the implementing agency of the African Union, and we had been asked to lead dialogue sessions on fiscal leakage and illicit financial flows in Africa’s extractive industries. Fiscal leakage is a polite term for tax evasion, and illicit financial flows is euphemistic language for corruption.

Interestingly, the participants were senior government officials from their countries’ Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Finance, with responsibility for contract negotiation, fiscal regime building and fighting illicit financial flows at the national