Adesina, AfDB President

Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the President, African Development Bank (AfDB), says Africa loses about  $148 billion  annually due to corruption.

Adesina, who spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja, said corruption posed great challenge to development in Africa.

He, however, said that corruption was not unique to Africa, but a global problem.
“Africa loses about 148 billion U.S. dollars a year because of corruption; Africa also loses 60 billion U.S. dollars a year because of illegal capital flow.

“These are money that should be going into education, health, water and sanitation sectors; wherever you have massive corruption, development takes a back seat and slow things down.

“Transparency is the key; detecting corruption is important, but preventing corruption is also important, therefore it is in the interest of Africa to prevent corruption in order to boost economy and development across the continent,’’ Adesina said.

Speaking on Sustainable Fund for Africa, Adesina said that it was an initiative of the United Nations, but hosted by AfDB.

He said that it was an initiative that was used in the enhancement of renewable energy.

Adesina said that Nigeria was benefiting from the initiative, adding that Nigeria can also access the fund for the renewable energy.

He said that Nigeria has a huge energy challenge, adding that the bank would be working closely with the government to tackle the challenge.

The president said that the bank would roll out new programmes in 2016 called “Transformative Partnership on Energy.

He said that the programme would give Africa a clear idea of how the bank was going to light up and power Africa in 2016