Illicit financial flows (IFFs), mainly through money-laundering, continues to be a challenge for the Namibian Government, head of anti-money laundering at Capricorn Group Njeri Siska has said. In an interview with NAMPA on Tuesday, Siska said the 2019 Transparency International Corruption Index places Namibia relatively low on incidences of corruption amongst 180 other nations. However IFFs, through dubious investments like the SME Bank saga, have undermined the government’s efforts to curb corruption which is closely related to IFFs and money laundering. She said other forms of IFFs include tax evasion whereby foreign-owned companies do not pay their fair share of tax to the country’s inland revenue department. “Persons who own companies hide their ownership of those companies and this facilitates market abuse,” Siska stressed. She mentioned three other forms of IFFs which include the laundering of proceeds of crime, corruption and theft of state assets, as well as corporate and individual tax abuse. Siska further said Namibia does have laws that criminalise tax evasion, but the implementation of those laws and identification and persecution of individuals and businesses violating them can be improved upon. She told this news agency there is not sufficient data to put a number on the monetary value of illicit financial flows from Namibia, but referred to the African Union and United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa High-Level Panel on IFFs, which indicated that Africa loses approximately US$50 billion to IFFs annually. -NAMPA