The Financial Intelligence Authority(FIA) has disregarded statements that Uganda threatens to be impeded by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) over its reluctance to combat financial vices like money laundering.
The comments came after the surging worry from stakeholders in the financial industry that Uganda could soon be apprehended by IMF for failing to enact regulations to contain financial crimes.
The financial Intelligence Authority revealed to the fourth estate that Uganda is still on the grey list because there are uncompleted tasks to be met prior to month-end.
The nations on the grey list are those that are under intensive scrutiny and profoundly cooperating with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to alleviate weaknesses in their systems to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.
The committee created by the Executive director at FIA, Sydney Asubo to counter money laundering stipulated that when a nation fails to stop the financial vices it is eventually blacklisted and this can impact the country’s financial structures to do international financial business.
FIA’s top brass said, ” Uganda was pitted in the FAFT money laundering monitoring list for the second time in January 2022 when the survey was conducted. we have handled 6 of the 22 cases and 16 are not yet finished. we are hopeful that from our efforts in May, there will be progress”.
Asubo further revealed that FATF will do an exercise at the end of May to estimate how far Uganda is doing to meet the 22 items and then make a decision.
“The policy asks of even us who do not produce weapons of mass destruction, a tool should be in place to know when others are transferring such funds through our system”, FIA boss said
Countries that belong to the grey list with Uganda consist of Yemen, Jordan, Albania, Jamaica, South Sudan, Cambodia, Malta, Barbados, Morocco, and so forth.
