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| GIABA’s Director-General, Dr. Abdullahi Shehu |
Chalking some feats in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing in the West African sub-region, the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is yet to engage in another battle.
GIABA’s Director-General, Dr. Abdullahi Shehu, hinted during a news conference in Accra Wednesday that in the next round of evaluation, West African member states would be encouraged to criminalize the provision or acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.
Considering how ignorant the region was on terrorism initially, he stressed that proactive measures ought to be taken to avert any possible plans of introducing weapons of mass destruction to this part of the world.
GIABA is currently holding its 19th Technical Commission plenary meeting and the 12th Ministerial Committee at the International Conference Centre in Accra from May 6 to 11.
The technical commission meeting is held twice every year in the first weeks of May and November.
During which member states share experiences and discuss relevant issues requiring a concerted, collective and harmonized approach in the implementation of robust anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures in the region.
At the meeting, draft Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) of the Republic of São Tomé and Principe (STP) would be discussed with a view to its adoption.
The adoption of the MER of STP would also bring to a close, GIABA’s first round of mutual evaluations of its 16 member states (15 ECOWAS countries + STP), which commenced in 2006.
Also, the follow-up reports of nine member states based on the secretariat's analysis would be discussed with emphasis on the extent of implementation of the recommendations in their MER.
There would be discussions on the recommendations made by the Working Group on Mutual Evaluation and Implementation (WGMEI) reports of Benin, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo that are on the expedited regular follow-up process and those of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, which are placed on the enhanced follow-up program.
Further in his explanations, Dr. Shehu said determining the extent of a recurring activity like money laundering was absolutely impossible.
“Nobody can tell you the exact estimate now because some people may be re-strategizing to conceal their ill-gotten wealth,” he stated.
He recalled that in 1996, the World Bank brought together criminologists and experts across the world to determine the extent of money laundering.
But “they only turned up with an assessment of what we called aggregate criminality and concluded that the entire money laundering could be estimated to cost about $500 billion per annum at the global level,” he mentioned.
The Director-General continued that according to the international community, every jurisdiction was susceptible to money laundering.
He defined money laundering as “the process of concealing, disguising the true origin, ownership, movement, destination and purpose of illegal property of illegal form.”
Money laundering was prevalent in the region but “we did not know the dimension and the methods that were used and its magnitude.”
He noted that the regional risk assessment findings of aggregate money laundering in some 7 countries in West Africa revealed there was an estimated $72 million loss through money laundering activities per annum.
Tax evasion constituted about $42 million of the amount with corruption also generating a lot of money laundering in that direction.
Due to infrastructure support to member states, Dr. Shehu observed that it has now become difficult for politicians and others to transfer money into foreign accounts.
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