Jul.08, 2010

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday tasked the National Assembly to strengthen existing legislations against money laundering and other financial crimes. The anti-graft agency said that given the growing trend in such crimes in Nigeria, the country required a new regime of stiffer penalties to combat the menace.

Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, disclosed this while making a presentation at a public hearing on the Bill for an Act to Provide for Measures to Combat Terrorism and the Bill for an Act to repeal the Money Laundering prohibition Act 2004.

Waziri lamented that the sanctions against money laundering in the existing laws were too weak, not proportionate and dissuasive enough to discourage persons who have the tendency to engage in such criminal conducts. She explained that the dynamic nature of the criminal world makes it necessary for countries to continue to review and strengthen anti-money laundering laws.

 Waziri observed that the challenges posed by money laundering and terrorism financing have not only impacted negatively on the socio-economic development of Nigeria, but also dented the image of the country in the comity of nations. She disclosed that Nigeria rating had fallen in terms of the United Nations Convention on money laundering because of these observed weakness in the country legislations on money laundering.

Nigeria does not have a comprehensive anti-money laundering law and for that reason has failed to meet the requirements of relevant UN conventions and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) nine special recommendations on terrorism and terrorism financing.

It is imperative to mention that since 2009, Nigeria has been on a targeted review by the Financial Action Task Force ( FATF) on account of the observed weaknesses in our anti-money laundering regime following the 2007 mutual evaluation.

In response, the Federal Government constituted a Presidential Inter-Ministerial Committee with the responsibility to engage FATF and Address all the observed weaknesses.

The Federal Government through the Presidential Committee has made a commitment to passing the two bills into laws before the end of June 2010 to stave off harder sanctions, Waziri said.

The EFCC boss also canvassed the inclusion in the bill provisions to protect persons who give information to the EFCC on money laundering and other related crimes. Apparently blaming the lukewarm attitude of Nigerians to the war against money laundering on this lapse, Waziri said there should be some form of legal protection for whistle blowers to encourage more Nigerians to cooperate with the anti-graft agency in the war against financial crimes.

There is no legislation explicitly protecting persons who report in good faith to the EFCC on crimes relating to money laundering. In other countries, they have laws to protect your informants so that he is not exposed to danger; he does not come to harm. If you give us information, and you are prepared to stand by what you are given us, you want to go to court, okay. But if you want to be protected, maybe someone, your boss or someone close to you, we need to protect you so that we encourage people to come forward, that is the whistle blowing we are talking about, she said.