An analysis by Abdullahi Mohammed, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
The Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is not leaving any stone unturned in its fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.
In its Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) report presented at the meeting of ambassadors of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Dakar, Senegal, from June 13 to 14, GIABA highlighted how it had waged a war against Transnational Organised Crimes (TOCs).
At the meeting, specifically designed for Ambassadors of the 15 ECOWAS member states, technical and financial partners, GIABA outlined its new strategies to deal with TOCs in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.
The new strategies were prompted by four different reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), which indicted the five countries.
The GIABA report also highlighted the progress made by Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal in the implementation of their respective action plans agreed with the International Cooperation Reviewed Group (ICRG).
The report further indicated the institution’s steady progress in strengthening regional and international cooperation against money laundering and financing of terrorism and firearms proliferation.
GIABA’s overall communication, advocacy and stakeholders’ engagement, according to the report, also witnessed significant boost in 2023, with about 96 per cent fully implemented.
Edwin Harris Jr, GIABA’s Director General, reassured the ECOWAS ambassadors at the Dakar conference of his institution’s commitment to continue to be on top of the situation in 2024 and beyond.
“Despite the challenges posed by the changing global trends and emerging threats, the GIABA Secretariat during its 24 years of existence has focused its interventions on protecting national economies and countries’ financial and banking systems from laundering the proceeds of crime and combating the financing of terrorism,” he said.
Harris said GIABA had also improved measures, intensified efforts to combat the laundering of proceeds of crime and strengthened national and international cooperation.
According to the director general, GIABA has increased its efforts and sped up the implementation of strategic plan from 2023 to 2027, providing technical assistance, capacity building and policy guidance to member states, thereby empowering them to implement robust measures to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.
“Similarly, there have been workshops and training programmes to strengthen the knowledge and skills of our stakeholders, including Financial Intelligence Units (FIU), criminal investigation and prosecution authorities and the private sector.
“These initiatives have fostered greater collaboration, information sharing and coordinated action, strengthening our collective ability to detect and investigate financial crimes and to prosecute them,” Harris explained.
Despite the complexities of West Africa and operations of high level criminal syndicates, GIABA has made it difficult for the TOC syndicates to be in total control of national economies and security.
Part of GIABA’s strategies in winning the war against money laundering and terrorism financing is co-opting journalists into the battle.
Hence, as part of the Dakar meeting, the organisation trained selected journalists from ECOWAS member states on the intricacies of reporting money laundering and terrorism financing.
Mr Djaha Benoit who presented a paper on, “Corruption and Tax Fraud Threat linked to Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing,” drew the attention of the journalists to the danger associated with underpublicising TOCs in the Sahel.
There was understandable assurance from the journalists from the region that henceforth, thorough investigative techniques would be applied in reporting the war against the activities of the most dangerous regional criminal groups.
The journalists agreed to form a network to tackle the issues through periodic investigation of TOCs.
This is to ascertain the level of progress in the war against criminality and to further expose the new methods of criminal activities adopted by the syndicates, among other things.
Benoit also expressed worry over the inability of the GIABA secretariat to support the media with the required data on TOCs in the Sahel.
He noted that the journalists would be able to showcase the impact of damages incurred as a result of TOCs if such data were handy.
He encouraged the media to try and get the data in their respective countries in order to background their stories with accurate information based on facts and figures.
On technical compliance, the GIABA report also demonstrated the commitment of some member states toward achieving technical compliance ratings in their respective countries.
These are issues which the specialised ECOWAS institution expects regional journalists to focus on as part of the new strategies.
The media is expected to propel its AML/CFT campaign toward improving the overall agenda of GIABA for making West African states to be free of money laundering and terrorism financing crimes, among others.
The journalists were taught how to use the GIABA annual report as a tool in their respective countries to pursue the media campaign against crime and criminality in West Africa.
Idrissa Ouattara, a research assistant at GIABA’s Secretariat, insists on the need for the regional journalists to develop the habit of doing their job with passion and curiosity to know how to tackle the problems associated with the beneficial ownership issues in the AML/CFT regimes.
“The moment the journalists understand the rate of illegal activities going on there, the sooner the criminal entities will be exposed,” he said.
The researcher, who spoke on, “Beneficial Ownership in Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime,” said the importance of digging out information on beneficial ownership of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing could not be overemphasised.
Ouattara said as a researcher, he found it difficult to explain to journalists the simplest ways of retrieving information concealed by beneficial owners and legal entities because of the technicalities involved.
He said the aim of his paper was to acquaint journalists with the knowledge of their role as investigative reporters in digging out information on those who benefit from money laundering and terrorism financing.
The conference tasked the journalists to identify deficiencies in the AML/CFT systems of their respective countries as contained in the report, and ensure they became running stories until GIABA’s mandate was achieved.
There is also an urgent need for the GIABA’s Secretariat to initiate the process of collecting data from member states to enable the institution build its database for proper utilisation of information with facts and figures.
This could be achieved through the communication, advocacy and stakeholders’ mobilisation visits, especially when dealing with higher authorities during high level advocacy mission.
This is not going to be impossible for GIABA as pin pointed by the Head of GIABA’s Media, Mr Tim Melaye, during his presentation at the Dakar meeting.
Malaye said the high level advocacy mission was an avenue for the sensitisation of high-level authorities on the need for political commitment and adequate support for the implication of effective AML/CFT regimes in the member states.
As such, if GIABA pushes for the collection of data on arrests, seizures and prosecution of criminals operating within the region, the efforts of the stakeholders and the media will be highly appreciated. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Salif Atojoko
…………………….. if used please credit the writer and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
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