The Chairperson of the African Union Advisory Board Against Corruption, Ms. Seynabou Ndiaye Diakhate (second right), addresses the opening of the 48th Ordinary Session at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) on February 3, 2025. (Photo by Paul Mzungute).
By The Arusha News Reporter
The African Union Advisory Board Against Corruption (AUABC) has called for intensified efforts to combat graft, which negatively impacts the continent’s economic stability, public trust, and good governance.
Addressing the opening of the AUABC’s 48th Ordinary Session in Arusha on February 3, 2025, the outgoing Chairperson, Seynabou Ndiaye Diakhate, implored members to step up anti-corruption measures across Africa.
“The wealth and resources of Africa should benefit its people, but often these are diverted into the hands of a few, leaving the majority scrambling for little. The fight against corruption is an imperative action,” she told the Board members.
Diakhate highlighted the troubling reality of “a rich continent with poor citizens,” attributing this to poor fiscal administration, illicit financial flows, and pervasive economic crimes.
She cited the exacerbation of economic constraints and a deepening cost-of-living crisis as factors that fuel corruption in both the public and private sectors.
The ongoing session, among other things, will review the Board’s progress in international cooperation, including the AU’s recent accession to the G20 and its involvement in the various G20 Working Groups, especially the Anti-Corruption Working Group and ongoing partnerships with international organisations.
The AUABC’s Executive Secretary, Charity Hanene Nchimunya, said the week-long board session would also discuss the Board’s Strategic Plan and receive updates on sensitisation missions to Cape Verde, as well as finalise the Country Review Report on Egypt and Côte d’Ivoire, among others.
A Board member from Ghana, Kwami Senanu, said that AUABC needs greater visibility across the continent and that the time to do it “was now.”
AUABC was created on May 26, 2009, under Article 22(1) of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, adopted by the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003.
Its main mandate is to promote and encourage the adoption of measures and actions by State Parties to prevent, detect, punish, and eradicate corruption and related offences in Africa, as well as to follow up on the implementation of those measures.
