By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has announced that Sierra Leone is preparing for a mutual evaluation on money laundering, terrorist financing and other activities that threatens the financial system of the country. They made the announcement at a press conference at their office on Tuesday.
According to the Deputy Director of Operations, David Borbor , the evaluation is done in two phases, with the first dealing with technical compliance vis-à-vis the laws that support the work of FIU, what they have done and some of the supporting institutions and how they collaborate to do their work.
The second phase looks at effective compliance, for which assessors from Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa, (GIABA), will be in town to conduct. This phase deals with how these systems actually work on the ground and asses the FIU’s progress during the period under review. It also looks at how many prosecutions they have done, the effect of sanctions on non-compliant institutions, among others.
The evaluation is scheduled to commence in July and will last for two weeks, according to FIU officials.
Mohamed Konneh, Director of the FIU, said the first phase of this evaluation has already been completed, as it was done off site.
“In February 2019 GIABA sent the TCQ (Technical Compliance Questionnaire) to FIU. The response were collated and submitted to GIABA and the unit has received the first draft comments on the score by the assessors of the TCQ and technical teams from various sectors are reviewing the comments,” he said.
In preparation for this second phase review, the FIU says it has strengthened collaboration with institutions like Bank of Sierra Leone and other commercial banks, as well as the National Minerals Agency, gaming and betting companies, insurance companies and the National Tourist Board.
But the challenge faced by the FIU, he said, has been record keeping in tracking the progress of these institutions.
“Documentation management is a greater problem. If we have done A, B, C and D we must have documents to prove it or else we will fail,” Konneh said.
If Sierra Leone gets a good credit score in the final results of this evaluation, it will improve its ranking in terms of safety for more investments, noted David Bobor, adding that there is no margin for error for the country in the upcoming evaluation process.
“If we get it badly wrong, we will be designated as a high risk country and we won’t be able to do business with the global financial system. This will compound the already difficult problem our economy is facing,” he stated.
As a way of pushing their work forward, the Director said they have developed a strategy of working closely with formal financial sectors and are also trying to incorporate the non-formal sectors in to the main stream financial system of the country.
“Our strategy is consultation, collaboration and enforcement. We have introduced the formal and non-formal aspects of collaboration. We also want to try to bring as much of the non-formal sector as we can in to the main fold,” he said.
The FIU was set up in 2012 following the enactment of the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism Act. Part of its mandate is to coordinate national and international efforts to combating money laundering and terrorism financing in line with international standards.
Currently the FIU say they only receive tips on financial improprieties, analyse them and pass on the information to other relevant authorities like the Police to act on them.
The Unit has extended its services to helping the police with some investigations and analyse financial information for the Anti- Corruption Commission and the on-going Commissions of Inquiry.
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