West African accountants urge to cooperate with other authorities to tackle money laundering

Dr Abdullahi Shehu, DG of GIABA

Accountants in the West African sub-region should cooperate and collaborate with relevant authorities in their countries to curb the menace of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML and FT), said the director general of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA).

Dr Abdullahi Shehu said accountants across the sub-region should cooperate with authorities like the police, lawyers, and other law enforcement agencies in customer identification, and record keeping and reporting of suspicious transactions.  This is cognizance of the fact that the fight against the twin evils of ML/TF required concerted efforts.

Dr Shehu made this statement on Wednesday in Banjul during the beginning of a two-day regional training on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (AML and CFT) requirements for accountants.   

The training, which is organised by GIABA, is being attended by accountants from English-speaking countries in the sub-region namely Ghana, The Gambia, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone.  It is meant to enhance the capacity of participants to enable them fulfil their obligations to adopt and implement AML and CFT measures.  Such measures include risk assessment and application of the risk-based approach to AML and CFT implementation.

Dr Shehu noted that if the expertise of accountants is provided to a criminal enable them (the criminals) to legitimatise their illegal funds through money laundering, the process of legitimisation of illegally acquired money in order to hide its true source. 

“It is therefore critical that accountants and accounting professionals are aware of and thus, are required to exercise due diligence and consistently monitor transactions of their clients to ensure accurate and meaningful disclosures of suspicion of illegal activity,” the GIABA DG said.

As financial professionals, accountants cannot afford to be complacent when it to being involved in the laundering or criminal proceeds. 

GIABA DG told the accountants: “You are expected to be on the lookout for possible criminal activities because, even if you are judged to have been unaware of the full nature of a client’s shady business, you will still be subject to legal or professional penalties at the end of the day.”

Two West African countries register sound progress in fighting money laundering

Ghana and Nigeria are making tremendous progress and achievement in the fight against the twin crimes of money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF), a news release from the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in WestAfrica (GIABA) has said.

According to the release from the GIABA Information Centre in Nigeria on Friday, Ghana has made significant progress in improving its Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime hence the Financial Action TaskForce (FAFT) has excluded the country from its list of countries with deficiencies in AML/CFT regime.

Initially, FAFT - global standard setting body for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism - blacklisted Ghana due to the country’s lack of progress in improving its AML/CFT regime and also called on member countries to consider the risks and be cautious in doing any transaction with Ghana.

Following this, the release said Ghana developed an Action Plan to address the strategic deficiencies identified in its AML/CFT regime, with the support of FATF and GIABA, an arm of ECOWAS mandated to clean the sub-region of the twin crimes of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML/FT).

In October 2010, Ghana made a political commitment to implement the Action Plan within one year.

GIABA calls for re-examining of laws against money laundering, financing terrorism in W/Africa

There is a need to re-examine the anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures in West African countries to ensure they do not induce superficial compliance by countries, said the director general of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), Dr Abdullahi Shehu.

Dr Abdullahi Shehu

Dr Shehu observed that the current AML/CFT framework may force money launderers and extremist groups to make frequent tactical changes and thus produces more grievances or fertile grounds for the recruitment of new set of criminals. 

Most parts of the AML/CFT framework of countries in the sub-region are products of imperfect and incomplete information, hence the need to establish and address the root causes of terrorism to ensure the successes recorded by the AML/CFT framework are enduring, Dr Shehu said while presenting a paper on the challenges of implementing  counter-financing of terrorism regimes in West Africa at the training workshop on AML/CFT for North and West African states organised by the Swiss Confederation and the Federal Republic of Nigeria in collaboration with Giaba held in Abuja, Nigeria, from December 11 to 13, 2012.  

“The benefits of implementing effective AML/CFT regimes are enormous,” the Giaba DG said. “Giaba will continue to support its members to implement effective AML/CFT measures that facilitate optimal deployment of resources and proper sequencing of intervention activities.”

For him, the adoption of international AML/CFT standards is not the magic wand towards eradicating money laundering and financing terrorism, but they are milestones towards building enabling framework that would provide the roadmap for achieving the ultimate goal of a crime-free society.

He said Giaba, an arm of ECOWAS established to fight money laundering and terrorist financing in West Africa, is mandated to develop strategies and mechanisms for the prevention and control of the twin crimes in the sub-region.

Low capacity hinders implementation of FATF Recommendations

All the West African countries which constitute GIABA Member States are facing daunting challenges of low technical know-how and the financial resources to implement the global standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), global pacesetters in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. 

THE IMPACT OF MONEY LAUNDERING AND FINANCIAL CRIME FROM BIGGER PERSPECTIVES

Money laundering is the criminal's way of trying to ensure that, in the end, crime pays. It is necessitated by the requirement that criminals -- be they drug traffickers, organised criminals, terrorists, arms traffickers, blackmailers, or credit card swindlers -- disguise the origin of their ill-gotten money so they can avoid detection and the risk of prosecution when they use it.

Author: Mr. Amaru Bah

Money laundering is critical to the effective operation of virtually every form of transnational and organised crime. Anti-money-laundering efforts, which are designed to prevent or limit the ability of criminals to use their ill-gotten gains, are both a critical and effective component of anti-crime programmes.

Money laundering generally involves a series of multiple transactions used to disguise the source of financial assets so that those assets may be used without compromising the criminals who are seeking to use them. These transactions typically fall into three stages: (1) placement -- the process of placing unlawful proceeds into financial institutions through deposits, wire transfers, or other means; (2) layering -- the process of separating the proceeds of criminal activity from their origin through the use of layers of complex financial transactions; and (3) integration -- the process of using an apparently legitimate transaction to disguise illicit proceeds. Through these processes, a criminal tries to transform the monetary proceeds derived from illicit activities into funds with an apparently legal source.

Money laundering has potentially devastating economic, security, and social consequences. It provides the fuel for drug dealers, terrorists, illegal arms dealers, corrupt public officials, and others to operate and expand their criminal enterprises.

Standard Chartered Bank at risk of losing banking licence

Standard Chartered Group chief executive Peter Sands

The parent company of Standard Chartered Bank Gambia has been asked to tell why its banking licence should not be revoked after it was alleged to have involved in a "scheme" with the Iranian government and hid from law-enforcement officials 60,000 secret transactions in order to generate hundreds of millions of 
dollars in fees.

In a rare move, New York's top bank regulator threatened to strip the banking licence of Standard Chartered Plc, saying it was a "rogue institution" that hid US$250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, in violation of US law that sanctioned Iranian Government. 

The loss of a New York banking licence would be a devastating blow to Standard Chartered, effectively cutting off direct access to the US bank market.

Civil society groups trained to fight corrupt elements in society

 

Various civil society organizations (CSOs) in West Africa have been equipped to help deal with corrupt elements in the region to guarantee a better society where all forms of economic and financial crimes like money laundering and terrorism financing will be reduced to its barest minimum.

The two-day regional sensitization workshop for CSOs on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) organised by the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) was held in the Senegalese capital of Dakar on 6 and 7 August 2012. 

The CSOs were capacitised and empowered to take ownership of the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

Speaking on the occasion, the director general of GIABA, Dr Abdulahi Shehu, said the civil society,  as a catalyst for change and promotion of good governance, has a big role to play in building viable legal and legislative frameworks to fight crimes and promote accountability.

 “It is imperative for CSOs to know the specific contribution they can and should make in order to surmount the threat of money laundering as well as the emergence of financing of terrorism and enhance public understanding, attitudes and references,” he said.

W/African civil society capacitised to battle money laundering, financing terrorism

The Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) will be organizing a regional sensitization workshop for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on AML/CFT in the Senegalese capital of Dakar on 6 and 7 August 2012. 

A statement from the sub-regional agency says the objectives of the workshop are to sensitize civil society organizations on AML/CFT issues and related implications in the West African sub-region; to get members of the civil society actively committed to their role as champions against these twin scourges by spreading the message at grassroots level; to establish links and a solid network of CSOs engaged in the fight as a means of sharing experiences and knowledge within the sub-region; and finally, to build the capacity of CSOs and empower them to take ownership of the fight against ML/FT.

“The fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism is a collective responsibility of all stakeholders geared towards the protection of the economies and financial systems of member States,” the statement says. “GIABA acknowledges the contribution of the civil society in mass mobilization and in the decision-making process.”

Journalists urge to collaborate with other organizations to fight against money laundering, terrorist financing

Journalists have been called upon to collaborate with other organizations involved in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing to collectively ensure that appropriate measures are taken against the twin crimes in a more harmonized and concerted manner.

This is part of recommendations contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a 2-day interactive session for media executives and journalists in West Africa organised by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), held from April 27 – 28 in Dakar, Senegal.

According to the communiqué, the 30 journalists and media executives from across the 15 member states of ECOWAS who attended the seminar, recommended that media practitioners should collaborate with organizations like Financial Action Task Force (FATF) - the global standard-setter for measures to combat money laundering, terrorist and proliferation financing; GIABA – an arm of ECOWAS established to fight money laundering and terrorist financing in West Africa, and similar organizations at national level.

The recommended collaboration will help to devise a common direction and means to articulate a more concerted regional approach to the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism to put a stop to the amount of millions of dollars being laundered in the West African sub-region annually.

It was also recommended that journalists should frequently visit the GIABA website (www.giaba.org) and of FATF (http://www.fatf-gafi.org) to keep themselves abreast with ML/FT issues.

GIABA strengthen partnership with media to clean W/Africa of money laundering

 Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) has further strengthened its partnership with the media geared towards cleaning West Africa of the twin crimes of money laundering and terrorist financing.

The sub-regional institution has recently brought together media practitioners from various media houses within and outside the West African region at a seminar dubbed World Press Conference held from 27-28 April in Dakar, Senegal to re-orientate them about their complementary roles in creating a sub-region devoid of these transnational crimes which can potentially undermine the economic growth of sub-region if not properly check on time.

Dr. Abdullahi Shehu, director general of GIABA said the objectives of the World Press Conference includes to acquaint the media professionals about regional initiatives on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, especially the mandate of GIABA in its sustained efforts to combat the twin crimes in the West African sub-region.