Nigeria may exit money laundering Public Statement –FG by TOLA AKINMUTIMI AND SEYI ANJORIN on Sep 17, 2013 | No comments Posted under: News 0 0 Nigeria may be delisted from the Financial Action Task Force, FATF, Public Statement, when the report of the Regional Review Group, RRG, is considered at its plenary next month. The Chairman, Presidential Committee on FATF, Mr. Stephen Oronsanye, expressed the hope yesterday at the opening session of the World Bank-facilitated National Risk Assessment Workshop in Abuja. Oronsanye said remarkable progress had been made by the country in its efforts towards full compliance with Public Statement of FATF. The chairman, who restated the importance of National Risk Assessment, NRA, in the effective prevention and mitigation of money laundering and the financing of terrorism, said Nigeria had been under FATF targeted review process since 2009. He explained that this was due to the fact that strategic deficiencies in Nigeria’s Money Laundering/ Terrorist Financing ML/TF regime were not addressed as observed during the 2007 mutual evaluation of the country. Consequently, the chairman said the Presidential Committee had remained engaged with FATF to address these deficiencies in order to exit the targeted review process, noting that significant progress had been achieved which culminated in the visit of RRG on Africa and the Middle East. Oronsaye said that based on the outcome of the series of interactions with stakeholders during the visit, he was optimistic that Nigeria would be exiting the Public Statement when the report of the RRG was submitted to the FATF Plenary next month. He said: “NRA allows individual countries to identify, assess and understand its money laundering and terrorist financing risks. Once these risks are properly understood, countries can apply ML/ TF measures that correspond to the level of risk, in other words, Risk Based Approach. “It is essential to stress that the risk-based approach directs implementation focus on high risks for maximum impact, thereby ensuring optimal utilisation of limited resources. “Given the central nature of NRA to compliance with FATF recommendations and in the fight against money laundering; it is imperative that we adopt an established methodology to ensure the credibility of our risk assessment. “After carefully considering several of established methodologies, the Presidential Committee on FATF decided to adopt the World Bank Strategy.” In her remarks at the forum, Director, Financial Intelligence Unit of NFIU, Juliet Ibekaku, said the assessment was very important for the country to understand exactly the issues involved in fighting money laundering and terrorism. Ibekaku said it was only when stakeholders understood the risks that Nigeria could begin to deploy resources to combat it. The director said the country had done well in enacting and re-enacting various laws on money laundering, adding, however, that stakeholders needed to understand the risks to be able to apply the laws. She said: “Everything has to do with the financial sector. How do we prevent people from using illicit money? How do we prevent such money from getting into the financial system? “The more we understand the risks, the more we will be able to deal with the problem. If we know where the risks are and are able to identify those sectors where they present themselves, then we will be able to better tackle the problem.” ML/TF National Risk Assessment is a process of identifying and evaluating the money laundering and terrorist financing risks in a particular jurisdiction and analysing the main sources and drivers of the risks in order to develop effective and riskbased policies and actions as well as allocate the available resources in the most efficient way to eliminate, control and mitigate the identified risks.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 09:41:59 +0000
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