Money Laundering Becomes Another Cause of Poverty, Says UN

According to the latest UN’s report, over 10% of the world’s wealth could be hidden in overseas banks. The UN calls for global banking reform in its report. 

Billions of people around the world have become a victim of poverty due to the tax abuse and corruption leading to money laundering. The UN’s report is asking for a global investigation. 

The financial integrity for sustainable development panel of the United Nations is urging the governments to reform the tax rules and the banking system to help end poverty by tackling this emergency. It is said that while the governments were facing rigid financial stress due to the pandemic, criminals were busy hiding their illicit wealth offshore. 

Leaders of the world, governors of central banks, businesses and representatives of the society agreed that the criminals were involved in the laundering of assets worth 2.7% of global GDP per year. 

Ibrahim Mayaki, the co-chair of the panel and former prime minister of Niger, said: “Closing loopholes that allow money laundering, corruption and tax abuse and stopping bankers, accountants and lawyers from enabling crime are steps in transforming the global economy for the universal good.”

The High-level Panel of International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (Facti) say in this final report that the corporation is required between the countries to put sanctions on the enablers of these financial crimes. 

The report also calls for progress towards digital companies and strong measures to increase the transparency of the ownership of the company and public spending. 

Dalia Grybauskaitė, the co-chair of Facti and former president of Lithuania, said: “Our report rests on two simple ideas: restore public finance by fixing a broken system and use the trillions of dollars released to eradicate poverty, recover from Covid and tackle the climate crisis.”

These requirements are required due to the coronavirus pandemic as it blew holes in the financial system of countries around the world.