Uganda to be blacklisted if its money laundering problem remains unresolved
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised the Bank of Uganda (BoU) to boost its anti-money laundering efforts if the country is to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force grey list.
After the government failed to meet the May deadline, by which it was expected to implement measures to combat money laundering and “terrorism” financing, the Financial Action Task Force noted in June that Uganda would remain on the grey list of nations that do not take full measures to combat these practices.
The IMF noted in the Uganda Fourth Policy Review that while the government had begun creating and implementing anti-money laundering risk-based supervision tools for banks with the assistance of the Fund Technical Assistance, maximizing supervision had remained difficult due to resource limitations.
According to the IMF, “Tools for foreign exchange bureaus and money remittance sectors have been rolled out but effective supervision requires optimising supervisory resources and coordination, which are currently a challenge due to resource constraints.”
The IMF also advised BoU to take quick steps to finish the last of the country’s action plan’s commitments in order to get off the grey list. The measures will include building channels via which non-compliant financial institutions can be dealt with as well as formulating rules and procedures to direct the use of supervisory sanctioning power.
The Financial Action Task Force, which has frequently extended Uganda’s compliance deadline, gave the nation a four-month extension to comply with the action plan’s requirements until October. If Uganda didn’t comply, it might be added to a blacklist that also includes Myanmar, Iran, and North Korea.
In order to address strategic deficiencies like ensuring that competent authorities have timely access to accurate basic and beneficial ownership information for legal entities, the IMF noted that Uganda needed to keep implementing the action plan’s requirements.
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija and Director of Research at the Bank of Uganda, Adam Mugume, both responded to the problems by stating that risk-based tools for banks had been effectively implemented in 2022, while comparable tools for currency bureaus and money remitters had been implemented in May of this year.
“This will guide our [anti-money laundering] onsite inspections on banks, forex bureaus, and money remitters on a risk-based approach,” Kasaija and Dr. Mugume responded.
According to a recent analysis, the primary method of illicit financial flows used to legalize criminal proceeds is trade-based money laundering. Trade-based money laundering is defined by the Financial Action Task Force as the concealment of criminal proceeds and the transfer of value through trade transactions to cover up their illegal sources.
According to research, trade-based money laundering costs the government more than $6.6 billion (Ush24 trillion) in lost trade income. Gold and petroleum goods were among the largest casualties. The amount of gold traded in Uganda has increased over time, yet little is known about the commodity.
