The business of dirty money

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“We face a global development emergency,” that’s the word from UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

This as the world marks only four years remaining until the target date for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015.

Listen: Fighting dirty money at the G20

While notable gains have been made, the 2025 SDGs report makes for frank reading, revealing that many will be left behind at the current rate of global progress.

For the African continent in particular, attention has been drawn to illicit financial flows (IFFs) and how they contribute to the delay of progress towards sustainable development and overall advancement.

On one side of the capital-flight coin lies corruption, money laundering and tax evasion to name a few; on the other are 141 countries that enable financial secrecy, as well as 20 that empower corporate tax abuse, according to the Tax Justice Network.

Although these jurisdictions may not be committing crimes per se, they often provide safe havens for corrupt capital in many instances.

Prince Tough Mupindu, a policy and advocacy researcher specialising in domestic resource mobilisation, joins The Business of Africa Podcast to count the cost IFFs on Africa.

He argues that citizens ultimately pay the price when a governor of an oil-rich state siphons funds meant for relief out of that jurisdiction, when an agricultural project fails because money meant for irrigation are safely tucked away in Guernsey, or when national security is threatened because funds earmarked for procuring arms are stashed in Malta.

In the last quarter of 2025, the global financial crimes watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) removed four African countries from its grey list.

Nigeria, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Mozambique were identified as having been “actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing”.

While this has been widely welcomed, calls for consequence management continue to grow.

Read:
De-shackling from the grey list
The shocking reality of money laundering in SA
Africa must plug $580bn leak to curb debt, AfDB chief says

To address the scourge of underdevelopment in Africa particularly as a result of IFFs, Mupindu makes a strong call for the continent to take a long, hard look at itself and its role in perpetuating stagnation through weak institutions and inadequate regulatory oversight.

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