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Parliament is working on a bill to help plug the holes in the existing anti-money laundering regulatory framework and make it more responsive to international standards.
The 2020 Anti-Money Laundering Bill aims to amend and consolidate laws related to money laundering and provide for related matters.
“This bill is to avoid piecemeal legislation by addressing all the shortcomings of Law 749,” Deputy Finance Minister Kwaku Kwarteng told Parliament on Tuesday as the House examined the 2020 anti-money laundering bill. .
Moving the motion for the Second Reading of the Bill, the Vice Minister of Finance observed that the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorism in 2016 carried out an assessment against money laundering and terrorist financing.
The focus of the exercise was technical compliance, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the country’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regime.
The assessment report identified some strategic deficiencies in the anti-money laundering regulatory framework and said:
“Although the result reflected a significant improvement; It still did not comply with the revised methodology of the Financial Action Task Force (FAFT). ”Mr. Kwarteng said Ghana was consequently placed on the FAFT“ gray ”list.
To address strategic deficiencies and comply with FAFT recommendations, the Government decided to repeal the current Anti-Money Laundering Law of 2007 (Law 749) and submit a new bill to Parliament.
This is to avoid fragmented legislation by addressing all the shortcomings of Law 749.
Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, Senior Member in Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, stated that Ghana’s FAFT status was undesirable as it posed very strict measures not only for Ghanaian companies but also for Ghanaian travelers as they had to demonstrate the sources of your data. means.
He said Ghana, by being a member of FAFT, placed the responsibility on it to ensure that it complied with the anti-money laundering requirement of international regulators.
He said the new comprehensive bill was intended to incorporate all the current FAFT requirements to allow Ghana to get off the “gray list” of countries that had not complied with international regulations.
