Gov’t Deepens Fight Against Money Laundering

Date published: September 11, 2014

By Mohammed Awal

(awalm19@gmail.com)

Some participants at the workshop

Government’s fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism has received a major boost, following the commencement of a National Risk Assessment (NRA) workshop to set up a robust and resilient Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime in Ghana.

The workshop, which commenced on the 9^th September and ends today aims to identify, assess and understand money laundering and terrorism financing risk in the country, as part of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations of 2012.

Also, it’s in fulfillment of Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS) ministerial committee of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa’s (GIABA) directive that all member states should conduct risk assessment of themselves before 2016.

In a speech read for the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong she described the NRA workshop as very timely, “not only because of the spate of the high incidence of insecurity in West Africa” when it comes to transnational organized crime, including money laundering and terrorism financing, but the outcome would enable the country to deploy its “scarce resources judiciously to address critical segments” that are vulnerable to these risks.

“The final product (blue-print) of the NRA exercise, which foundation is being laid today, will place Ghana in a better stead for the next round of mutual evaluation that would be conducted in 2016, on the basis of assessing the effectiveness or measurable achievements made as a result of the AML/CFT measures of the country,” she indicated.

Mrs. Appiah-Oppong urged the working group to ensure that the NRA was built on sound foundations observing that efforts must be made to ensure that the risks are well identified, assessed and understood before anything is done.

She said “as such the NRA should be based on an assessment of the threats, vulnerabilities, consequences and the likelihood of crime to be committed.

She also tasked the group to make sure the description of fundamental background information to assist designated competent authorities like the Financial Intelligence Center (FIC), Financial Institutions and Designated Non-Financial Bodies and Professions (DNFBPs) to ensure that decisions about allocating responsibilities and resources at the national level were based on a “practical, comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the risks in the various sectors of the economy.”

The Director of Research and Planning, GIABA, delivering the remarks of Adama Coulibaly’s, the Director General of GIABA, revealed that NRA exercise would help the country to “clearly indentify and set priorities for intervention in order to systematically build its AML/CFT regime.”

A well executed NRA with comprehensive action plan he reiterated would bring improvement in the country’s compliance ratings, a successful RBA program for financial institutions and DNFBPs, an effective AML/CFT, “robust enough to detect almost all financial crimes.”

But he warned that all these expected results would not be achieved without collaboration, cooperation and effective coordination.

In order for all these to be optimum, “we need an effective coordination mechanism, wherein those stakeholders responsible for coordinating, understand what it takes and also making sure it is implemented effectively.”

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