The Nigerian Minister of mines and steel development, Kayode Fayemi (photo), together with other African ministers of mines are leading a new drive to reverse the unlawful outflow of the continent's mineral resource wealth. This is coming after new data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) showed that over $50 billion is lost by African countries every year to unstructured, illegal and unreported transactions.

“This negative economic trend could be reversed through the involvement of credible multinational mining firms in transparent local operations while phasing out unstructured artisanal mining practices that harm miners, breed corruption and weaken national economies,” Fayemi said.

Some experts believe losses recorded by African nations due to the lack of transparency in their respective mining sector are higher than previously estimated. According to Aida Opoku-Mensah, the special advisor to the executive secretary of UNECA on post-2015 development agenda, the over $50 billion figure “is conservative and underpins disproportional transfer pricing and corruption, and could even be as high as $100 billion”.

Anita Fatunji