Bono presses Africa to tackle corruption

Bono

ABUJA, Nigeria - Rock star and activist Bono, pressing wealthy nations to keep their aid promises to Africa, said today the continent needs to tackle corruption, the single biggest obstacle to more investment.

With pledges by the industrial nations to double aid by 2010, Bono cautioned that unless corruption was tackled the goodwill of industrialised nations could dissipate.

"There is a window of opportunity but it could close if things like the corruption issue are not tackled or the peer review mechanisms are not felt to be real," he told reporters travelling with him before addressing African finance ministers in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.

"I'll go further and say that the single biggest obstacle to business and the renewal of the economies in the south is corruption and the single biggest obstacle to getting start-up money for those businesses, if you want to look at aid as investment, is corruption," he added.

He said taxpayers in developed nations were also demanding more accountability from their own political leaders to ensure that money going to Africa was properly used.

Bono said it was an "oversimplification of Africa to think" of all African countries as corrupt.

He said in many cases aid had done more harm than good in Africa and it was important to create opportunities for the continent to help itself through more trade.

"The West really has to understand that Africans don't want aid, they need aid, and what Africa desires and what (it) deserves is trade as a route out of their present difficulties," he said.

"Africans may be more sick of Aids, TB and malaria but they are plenty sick of aid," he added.

- REUTERS