Forensic Technology a Critical Tool to Rooting Out Corruption in Africa

Scale corruption is the proverbial elephant in the room in the ongoing conversation about Africa’s growth story. If countries on the African continent want to successfully attract the investment required for inclusive growth, the respective governments and private sector players must take urgent action to tackle corruption.

This is not to say that corruption is not a serious problem elsewhere on the globe, but lessons from the fastest growing economies in the world show that the fight against corruption must be prioritised if investors are to have confidence that their money will be safe in a particular country.

Too much talk and too little action on corruption is one of the biggest barriers to investment on the African continent. Despite commitments from African leaders in declaring 2018 as the African Year of Anti-Corruption, this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published by Transparency International presents a largely gloomy picture for the continent. Only eight of the 49 participating countries scored more than 43 out of 100 on the index.

While advanced digital technology is now available to forensic investigators to help them uncover and prosecute corruption across Africa, the fight against corruption is being hampered by a lack of supporting legal frameworks, a lack of law enforcement capacity and skills and, in some cases, increasing administrative hurdles imposed by data protection laws.

There are a number of ways African governments can seize the opportunity to use forensic technology to root out fraudulent activity, improve governance and bring those guilty of corruption to book.