Financial Transparency Coalition

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - In the aftermath of President Obama's trip to Ghana, where he urged Africans to fight corruption and take control of their own destiny, leaders from the continent called on the Obama Administration to do its part by making U.S. foreign assistance more focused and effective.

"A New Moment of Promise": President Obama addresses the Parliament of Ghana in Accra on July 11, 2009.

For more than half a century the Alpine nation of Switzerland has built a reputation as the world´s centre for tax evasion, fraud accounting, money laundering, racketeering, save haven and above all a staunch ally of corrupt third world leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption. For more than 70 years various categories of persons including Popes, presidents, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business men, and drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland. As a result her economy has been described in various terms as underground economy, deposit box for...

Corruption is not exclusive to Africa, of course. Yet official corruption is bound to be more glaring on a continent where most people live in dire poverty. And the news from Africa, as reported in the International Herald Tribune on June 10 by Celia W. Dugger, is that the fight against such corruption is not going well.