Ghana not complacent about delisting from FATF

Mrs. Marrietta Appiah Oppong

Source: Globalnewsreel.com

Ghana’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Marrietta Appiah Oppong has indicated that the country is not complacent about its recent achievement of being delisted from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) public statement.

To even chalk more successes in the future, she mentioned that processes have been initiated “to enact a Real Estate Agency Act and a new Extradition Act to leave no room for money laundering activities and to also ensure effective prosecution of suspects.”

The country was delisted from being among the non-compliant countries and territories from February 2012 to October 2012, following its commitment to addressing the deficiencies in anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).

With a weak anti-money laundering regime, Ghana was subjected to a peer review of compliance with the FATF recommendations 40+9 in April 2009, hence the move to enact and amend existing laws.

Enactment and amendment

Conforming to the written commitment, the government of Ghana took drastic measures to enact and amend relevant laws per the FATF recommendations. They included:

Economic and Organized Crime Office Act, 2010 (Act 804)

Anti-money Laundering Regulations, 2011 (L.I. 1987)

Criminal Offences (amendment) Act, 2012 (Act 849)

Immigration (amendment) Act, 2012 (Act 848)

Economic and Organized Crime Office (Operations) Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2183)

Anti-terrorism Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2181)

Executive Instrument, 2012 (E.I. 8), repealed by Executive Instrument, 2012 (E.I. 19) and subsequently, it was also repealed by Executive Instrument, 2013 (E.I. 2)

Anti-terrorism (amendment) Act 2012 (Act 842)

Gazette notice: Notice given by Attorney-General and Minister of Justice with respect to the listing of terrorist individual, entities or organizations.

Mrs. Oppong was speaking at the opening of the 19th Plenary/Technical Commission meeting of the Inter Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) at the Accra International Conference Centre Thursday.

The GIABA plenary meetings are platforms for member States to share experiences and discuss relevant issues that require 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.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Oppong assured participants that the Ghana government would continue to prioritise AML/CFT issues by ensuring that the Inter Ministerial Committee on AML/CFT, the Law Enforcement Coordinating Bureau and the Financial Intelligence Centre were well resourced to discharge their responsibilities as the law required.

“As part of the proposals for amendment of the Anti-money Laundering Act, 2008 (Act 749), Government would consider the establishment of a Special Control Unit on Money Laundering (SCUML),” she noted.

This, according to her, would ensure the compliance of the obligations imposed by the law on Designated Non Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs).

To give credence to GIABA’s efforts, the Minister of Justice called on the Lady Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood to strengthen the judiciary in Ghana in order to improve the prosecution of money laundering cases.

On his part, GIABA’s National Correspondent in Ghana, Samuel Thompson Essel said his outfit would endeavour to make the perpetration of tax evasion, human trafficking and cyber crime unprofitable in the sub-region.

“If we do not strike and strike harder, criminals would create instability, re-ignite corruption and eventually take over state power,” he maintained.