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Money laundering: Minister blames porous borders
2006-09-19 09:46:56
By Austin Beyadi
A combination of predominantly cash nature of many African economies and porous borders make many countries in the continent vulnerable to money laundering, the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mustafa Mkulo said yesterday in Dar es Salaam.
Mkulo said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that money laundering poses a major threat to many African economies’ financial systems, businesses and economic assets.
Opening a workshop to review the African Development Bank’s Strategy for the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, Mkulo said porous nature of the borders in Africa makes it easy for criminals to move cash with ease among countries.
He said the crime undermined development by eroding Africa’s social and human capital, impacting negatively on the social and political stability, driving investments and businesses away from the continent and undermining the ability of states to promote development.
”Proceeds from crime fuels corruption which in turn facilitates the commission of crime he said.
Mkulo said through money laundering process, criminals attempt to hide and disguise the true origin of ownership of their criminal activities’ proceeds, thereby avoiding prosecution, conviction, and confiscation of the criminal funds.
He said the financers of terrorism uses similar methods to those of money launders in disguising the sources of funding of terrorism activities and this also allow those who finance terrorists activities to avoid detection and eventual prosecution.
He further said the parliament introduced an anti money laundering bill in its last session and it is expected to pass it into a law,soon.
He said the bill provides for the establishment of various instruments to effectively implement anti- money laundering laws and combat financing of terrorism.
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