Risk Assessment Crucial To Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing- Lamorde
Olaoluwa Folalu
Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, has said, a good understanding of risk assessment is crucial to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
He added that money laundering and terrorist financing posed a lot of risks to national health.
Speaking on Wednesday at a two-day National Risk Assessment Workshop at the NAF Conference Centre, Abuja, Lamorde stated that unlike in the business community, stakeholders in public sector management had yet to appreciate the importance of risk assessment.
Lamorde, who spoke through the Director, Public Affairs Department (PAD), Osita Nwajah, said: ‘‘We owe it Nigeria to contribute our quota in making the National Risk Assessment a success by prioritising the allocation of our scarce resources to and amongst government agencies, while also providing feed back to the Anti-Money Laundering( AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism ( CFT) risk assessments already conducted by our partners in the private sector.
‘‘Over all, the NRA, on completion, will afford us not only the necessary leverage towards an excellent performance in the evaluation of Nigeria by the regional FATF-FRSB GIABA in 2017, but enhance our country’s eligibility to the FATF membership.’’
In his speech at the occasion, the Director of Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Francis Usani, emphasised the need for the completion of the NRA project in time as a condition for Nigeria to remain the sub-regional champion on the AML/CFT matters, while also positioning itself for the second round of mutual evaluation.
Usani explained that the workshop was to kick-start the second phase of the NRA project, which involves relevant data, analysis of data collected and publication of the final NRA document.
‘‘We must not lose sight of the international and local demands on our various agencies, institutions and the country as a whole, in terms of compliance with domestic and international AML/CFT standards”, he said.
Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Mr. Nta Ekpo, in his speech urged Nigerians to be resolute in the fight to installing integrity, transparency and accountability in both the private and public sectors.
Ekpo, who spoke through Udofia Abia, charged anti-corruption agencies to appreciate the enormity of their responsibilities.
According to him, ‘‘risk assessment entails a systematic analysis of our nation( the people and the environment) to identify the state of affairs, circumstances, procedures, conditions, developments etc that may cause harm; it is also about the evaluation of the severity of the risks, while deciding on the measures that can effectively prevent them.’’
Alhaji Abdullahi Yola, Permanent Secretary and Solicitor-General of the Federation, in his remarks said, the workshop was intended to sensitize stakeholders on how to effectively investigate and prosecute terrorism- related cases and recovery of proceeds of crime.
According to him, many forms of organised crimes such as terrorism and money laundering entail layers of criminal conspiracy and responsibility. These offences have cross- border implications as different components of the main crime (which may also be crime in their own right) occur in different jurisdictions. The investigation and prosecution of such crimes cannot be ‘’business as usual’’.
