By Prince J Musa in Kenema
In an effort to combat money laundering and tackle the financing of terrorism, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Sierra Leone has on the 27th January 2022 held a regional consultative conference on the review of the anti-money laundering and combating of financing of terrorism Act No 2 of 2012 in Kenema.
The state counsel east, Ibrahim Thollie who chaired the event said, due to many financial crimes in the country, the government has put attention to money laundering and financing terrorism and that it’s against this backdrop that FIU was created to curtail acquiring illegal wealth by criminals through reviewing the Anti-money laundering Act.
He said the role of FIU is to coordinate with all other financial institutions in making sure that they are able to mitigate anti-money laundering and terrorist financing in the country and that the FIU works with law enforcement bodies and gives financial intelligence through information and link with the police intelligence wing.
The state counsel emphasized that money laundering is an act of converting finance either through precious minerals, micro-financial institutions, and other properties acquired illegally with no justification and therefore encouraged participants to pay attention for the benefit all.
In his statement, the Director of FIU Sierra Leone David N Bobor said the office was created by an Act of parliament to work with other financial institutions to mitigate financial-related crimes in the country. He said that FIU is engaging stakeholders across the country in order to share their roles and responsibilities as institutions in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
He said FIU wants to make some amendments in certain areas of the law against anti-money laundering as there are some areas in the law that have been identified by partners to be weak.
He stated that the consultation captured all financial institutions such as Bank of Sierra Leone, National Revenue Authority, commercial banks, companies dealing with huge financial transactions, the security sector, National Mineral Agency, mobile companies, traditional leaders, markets women, bike riders, local councils, civil society among others so that they will make their own inputs to get one national document.
He maintained that as an institution the engagement will enable them to share the direction they want to take in addressing money laundering and terrorist financing.
‘’FIU will stand firm with other institutions to mitigate Anti-money laundering and financing terrorism in the country,’’ he said.
The Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Francis Amara Kaisamba thanked FIU management for decentralizing the consultation on the review of the Act.
He said this is the second time that they are reviewing the Act.
Kaisamba stated that their mandate as members of parliament is to make good laws for the country and involving them in the process was no mistake by FIU, saying there has been a lot of issues around money laundering terrorist financing, and other financial crimes as many financial institutions have been operating under the pretext of giving loans to people and at the end, people are duped.
Kaisamba made reference to recent incidents in Kenema and Bo when people got duped by one illegal financial network “my coin” leading to a huge loss of people's savings.
Chairman Kenema District Council, Mohamed Amodu Sesay commended FIU for the steps taken to review the Act but said there is a need for the popularization of the Act when completed for the benefit of especially the rural population.
He said the new Act should make stringent provisions to screen all private financial institutions for proper operations in the country with penalties levied on defaulters.
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