Sierra Leone Telegraph: 12 February 2020:
Next month, March 12, 2020, the Sierra Leone Governance Innovation Team will speak at a High-Level Conference on the promotion of good governance and fight against corruption, taking place in Accra, Ghana.
The High-Level Conference is organized by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The event will take place as a full-day side event of the 4th session of the African Union (AU) Specialized Technical Committee (STC) on Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning and Integration planned over March 9-14, 2020.
The conference is being organised in response to calls from within Africa to advance governance reforms and ramp up the fight against corruption, which are seen by regional stakeholders as critical to improved macroeconomic performance, effective institutions and inclusive development.
The AUC and the IMF have also given governance and anti-corruption efforts an increasingly higher level of priority in their work, and within the scope of their respective mandates.
More specifically, the conference will offer a platform to discuss progress in the continent on strengthening governance and tackling corruption, present the IMF’s new framework for enhanced engagement and discuss its implications on the IMF’s lending, surveillance, and capacity development operations.
The specific objectives of the conference include (i) discussing reforms of governance and anti-corruption frameworks in the continent, (ii) discussing the AUC strategy and the IMF framework on governance and corruption; (iii) building consensus on the macro-critical impact of poor governance and corruption and their transmission channels, and (iv) disseminating key IMF and AUC findings on governance and corruption issues, including the 2019 Fiscal Monitor (Curbing Corruption) and the anti-illicit financial flows Working Group (IWG) of the Consortium to stem IFFs from Africa.
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Conference Agenda (Tentative) |
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| Thursday, March 12, 2020 | |
| 08:30 – 10:10 | Opening Ceremony |
| 08:30 – 08:40 | Welcome Address • Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana |
| 08:40 – 9:00 | Keynote Address • Mr. Thomas Kwesi Quartey, African Union Commission (AUC) Deputy Chairperson”Winning the fight against corruption: A sustainable path to Africa’s transformation”. The African Union (AU) dedicated the year 2018 to the fight against corruption. The speech will focus on the AU plan to help member states fight poor financial governance that affects the inclusive development of the continent. |
| 09:00 – 09:20 | Keynote Address • Mr. Mitsuhiro Furusawa, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Deputy Managing DirectorThe macroeconomic impact of governance and corruption issues: Framing the Policy Issues and Presenting the New IMF Framework for Enhanced Engagement on governance and corruption issues. The speech will focus on how the Fund’s new framework on governance and corruption issues can help its membership put in place strong governance arrangements for enhanced macroeconomic performance. It will shed light on the work by the Fund’s Regional Capacity Development Centers (RCDC), including Africa Training Institute (ATI). |
| 09:20 – 09:40 | Coffee / Tea break and Group photo |
| 09:40 – 11:10 | Session I: Helping African Countries Reap the Governance Dividend Chairpersons • Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana • Hon. Dr. Philip Mpango, Minister of Finance of TanzaniaSpeaker • Prof. Eddy Maloka, African Peer Review Mechanism Discussants This session will articulate the positive impacts of improved governance in the continent. It will offer the AUC and the IMF an opportunity to present their strategy on governance and corruption issues. |
| 11:20 – 12:50 | Session II: Curbing Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs)
Chairperson Speaker Discussants This session will discuss measures to curb IFFs, including sound Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/ Combatting Financing of Terrorism (CFT) frameworks, and the implementation of programs such as Stolen Asset Recovery and Repatriation (SARR). It will offer a forum to present the AUC report on Domestic Revenue Mobilization: A fight against corruption. |
| 12:20 – 12:50 | Press Conference |
| 12:50 – 13:50 | Lunch |
| 12:50 – 13:50 | Leveraging technology to improve governance: Presentation by Sierra Leone’s Governance Innovation team
Speaker The team will present its proposals on digitization of assets declarations and detection and analysis of suspicious transactions to fight AML/CFT. |
| 13:50 – 15:30 | Session III: Break-out Sessions – Key Policy Areas on Governance and Corruption Issues Facing the Continent
Sub-theme 1: Key Issues in Fiscal Governance Speaker Discussants This session will discuss the benefits of strengthening fiscal governance. Following an overview of the elements of fiscal governance, reform experiences within or outside the region will be discussed. The experiences will cover the areas of public financial management, revenue administration, and SOE oversight. |
| 13:50 – 15:30 | Sub-theme 2: Key Issues in the Financial Sector Chairperson • Mr. Abbas Mahamat Tolli, Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC)Speaker • Mr. Mohammed Nyaoga, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Kenya Discussants This session will allow a discussion of the findings of the governance assessments relating to the financial sector. The discussions will cover the quality of regulatory and supervisory frameworks, Central Banks’ legal frameworks, external and internal audit, reporting, internal controls. Central Bankers will have an opportunity to share their experience on measures that could boost financial governance. |
| 13:50 – 15:30 | Sub-theme 3: Key Issues in Anti-Corruption Frameworks Chairperson • Mr. Moses Dinekere Pelaelo, Governor of Central Bank of BotswanaSpeaker • Prof. Robert Klitgaard, Claremont Graduate University Discussants This session will allow a discussion of the findings of the governance assessments and other works done by the IMF and the AU on robust anti-corruption frameworks. |
| 15:30 – 15:45 | Coffee/Tea break |
| 15:45 – 17:30 | Session IV (Plenary): Takeaways and Next Steps Chairpersons • H. E. Mr. Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, President of the ECOWAS Commission • H. E. Ms. Chileshe Kapwepwe, Secretary General of COMESA |
| 15:45 – 16:30 | Sub-theme 1: Takeaways from African Policymakers
• Mr. Abdoulaye Coulibaly, Director, Governance and Public Finance Management Department, African Development Bank The speaker will summarize discussions on anti-corruption frameworks, IFFs and SARR. He will identify strong points and gaps in the existing frameworks to curb IFFs and recover and repatriate stolen assets. These strong points will cover anti-corruption agencies, beneficial ownership issues, and asset declarations regimes. • Mr. Tiémoko Meyliet Koné, Governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) The speaker will summarize discussions on financial sector governance and AML/CFT frameworks. These will cover the quality of regulatory and supervisory framework, central banks’ legal framework, external and internal audit, reporting, internal controls. The speaker will also identify key areas where capacity building would be required. • Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana The speakers will summarize discussions on fiscal governance. They will identify good practices in the continent and beyond, and measures that could help enhance revenue mobilization. |
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Sub-theme 2: Takeaways by IMF and AUC and Next Steps
• Mr. Victor Harison, AUC Commissioner for Economic Affairs The speaker will summarize discussions from AUC’s perspective and indicate next steps for the AUC on IFFs and SARR and avenues for collaboration with the IMF on governance issues. • Mr. Zeine Zeidane, Deputy Director, IMF African Department The speaker will summarize discussions from the IMF’s perspective and indicate next steps for the Fund’s work on governance and corruption issues and opportunities for collaboration with the AUC. |
| 17:00 – 17:15 | Discussion of the joint press release |
Another day another gathering, by men in suits and expensive threads to talk about development – a recurring phenomenon that never really amount to development. This game of meet, so as to discuss issues that the continent is faced with has been played on us on all levels for far too long, with little or nothing to show for. For this, I keep wondering when are the people going to realize that these fly and meets, by men who think highly of themselves are nothing but a sham.
These gatherings are nothingburgers, and it is time we take a note of it. It’s time we put a stop to this madness, for the people deserve more than just tabloid projections. There are countless kids, who in normal circumstances would be in class in the morning for education, but because of the apathetic reality that they are forced to face, that might not happen for them. Those kids will more than likely walk a mile in the morning, away from their houses to fetch water for their mothers to cook with.
With all the trips that these men have been on *in the past* decades, supposedly to talk about ironing out some of these fundamental issues that we are dealing with, we are still wrestling with getting water in a fashionable manner. That should tell us something. To add to that, these men know that they are corrupt, the people know they’re corrupt, so what’s the need for them to coral in style to talk about corruption?