Ghana is committed to fighting financial crimes – Minister

Ken Ofori-Atta – Finance Minister

The Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta says Ghana is committed to ensuring that tax evasion; a predicate offence of money laundering is drastically reduced if not eradicated.

 In a key note address, read on his behalf by Madam Magdalene Appenteng at a workshop organized by the Inter governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), he noted that Ghana will soon consider instituting measures that would deepen collaborations between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Forensic Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department and the Financial Intelligence Centre with the aim of ensuring that tax evaders are punished accordingly.

Adding to that, the Independent Prosecutor will ensure expeditious and effective prosecution of persons suspected to have committed corruption and other financial crimes.

Mr Ofori-Atta also revealed that Ghana is considering the establishment of an Asset Management office to effectively deal with property related crime.

He reaffirmed President Akufo-Addo’s determination to fight the financing of terrorism and predicate offences especially corruption.

“To demonstrate his determination, the President has directed the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice of the Republic of Ghana to initiate measures to amend the Criminal offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) to upgrade the gravity of the offence of corruption from misdemeanor, as it currently stands, to a felony,” he added..

This, he pointed out would send warning signals to public servants and civil society organizations, as punishment for corruption would be proportionate, dissuasive, effective and consistent with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF ) standards.

Also speaking at the opening of the workshop, Mr. Samuel Thompson Essel, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of the Financial Intelligence Centre Ghana said, a successful National Risk Assessment (NRA) exercise would enable the country to adopt a Risk-Based Approach for the development of supervisory guidelines for financial institutions.

The exercise would additionally, deepen public education particularly, private sector awareness and involvement in the fight against transnational organised crime.

Mr Ofori-Atta commended GIABA, and FATF, for organizing the workshop on the revised FATF Methodology for Mutual Evaluation Assessors.

GIABA is the umbrella organization for West Africa in dealing with money laundering but now has other members outside West Africa. GIABA is helping member states to put in place programmes to be able to implement effective and robust measures through capacity building, compliance and monitoring.

Ghana was cited in a recent report from the US State Department as one of the major countries in the world engaged in money laundering practices in the year 2016.

The International Narcotics Strategy Report, found that although Ghana’s Anti-Money Laundering Law, is largely compliant with international standards, these laws are not often applied.

By Pamela Ofori-Boateng

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