THE Council of Kaya elders yesterday faulted Cord’s move to hold a public rallies, to welcome former Prime Minister Raila Odinga back to the country. The elders said the politicians should be careful not to fuel chaos among Kenyans at the rallies.
Addressing a press conference in Mombasa town yesterday, the elders said political rallies are uncalled for at this time when the country is grappling with the insecurity problems.
Julius Saha, the patron Kaya elders said Kenyan leaders should shy away from divisive politics and build the country together. “We are not in the electioneering period, hence we do not see the reason why the opposition should hold public rallies to talk negative issues about the government,” he said.
“As Kenyans, we need to support our government and criticize it when it is not working properly but opposition should not use criticism to incite the public.”
The east African nation came de at police in attempt t out worst in a list of nations across the continent examined by the watchdog group Global Financial Integrity (GFI), with nearly $19bn in illicit flows over the past decade, the equivalent to over 7 percent of its total government revenue.
โThereโs a narrative in the development community that thereโs something wrong with developing countries, because we keep pumping money in, and theyโre not developing as quickly as weโd like them to,โ GFI economist Brian LeBlanc said last week.
โThe reality is that weโre draining money out, and weโre doing it at an increasing rate.โ
The GFIโs examination of trade mis-invoicing reveals stark figures. Mis-invoicing occurs when businesses deliberately lie about the value of the goods they are importing or exporting. There are a lot of illegal reasons to do this, including tax evasion and money laundering.
GFI said trade mis-invoicing was a $424bn a year problem globally, and made up about 80 percent of all the money that flowed out of developing countries illegally.
Numbers like this, when compared with aid, mean there is far more money draining out of Africa than going in.
Much attention has been given to transfer pricing, when multinational companies employ accounting tricks to shift profits into countries where they will pay less tax.