A new chapter has been opened in the crusade and fight against Money Laundering (ML) and Financing Terrorism (FT) activities in Ghana with the closure of a 3-day National Workshop on the Development of an Action Plan against ML and FT.
The workshop, which was organised by the government of Ghana, in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Action Group Against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa (GIABA), sought to develop a road map to fight ML/FT activities in the country.
Participants were drawn from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), relevant ministries, department and agencies responsible for the implementation of Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing Terrorism (CFT) laws, accountable institutions, self regulatory/professional bodies, civil society groups, the media and other stakeholders.
Presentations and discussions at the workshop focused on thematic areas that included the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in Ghana’s ML/FT legislation, the need for national collaboration and coordination; Building effective ML/FT regulatory and enforcement frameworks—the road ahead for Ghana; How to build effective AML/CFT compliance systems for reporting entities.
The workshop was necessary because the scourge of ML demanded a strategic and rigid approach to combat it.
It also became imperative and critical that an ECOWAS country like Ghana strengthened its AML/CFT regime so that it does not become the target for the criminal elements and corruption that harbour the predicate offences for money laundering.
ML is the process by which the proceeds of crime and the true ownership of those proceeds are concealed or made opaque so that the proceeds appear to come from a legitimate source.
The financing of terrorism is what the name connotes. These activities if left unchecked will eventually destabilise a country’s economic gains since increasingly, it loses international investments.
It is in this vein that Today would like to challenge stakeholders to walk the talk at the just ended workshop if only we want to achieve this objective to make Ghana a fraud- free and ML/FT-free country.
What can we achieve if at the end of the day authorities concerned and its stakeholders become paper tigers rather than walking the talk.
Today thinks that this should not be one of those talk shops as have been exhibited in the past years so that we can gradually deal with the increasing cases of ML/FT.
It is also a welcome piece of news that the Economic and Organised Crime (EOC) bill had been tabled before Parliament and would soon be passed officially into law.
This suggests beyond all reasonable doubts that we are making progress in developing the requisite legal frameworks to punish the perpetrators of the above crime.
We at Today also take this opportunity to charge Parliament to speed up the passage of the EOC bill into law before things get out of hand.
