EFCC boss tasks bankers on money laundering, terrorism

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday advised bankers in the country to make effective use of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing measures put in place by the government in the ongoing fight against money

laundering and terrorist financing.

The Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, gave the advice while speaking at the anti-money laundering workshop organized by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria in Abuja.

Lamorde pointed out that in the 2012 report on illicit Financial Flows, Africa is estimated to be losing more than $50 billion annually.

The EFCC chairman observed that these flows relate principally to commercial transactions, tax evasion, criminal activities such as money laundering, drugs, arms and human trafficking, bribery, corruptions and abuse of office.

According to him: “It behooves all of us stakeholders to put in more efforts to make the

Nigerian AML/CFT regime the reference in the comity of nations. But even as we continually strive to get that which we desire, I believe that we would make an appreciable impact if we faithfully engage the AML/CTF regime that we currently have in place.”

Lamorde disclosed that the findings of the panel headed by Thabo Mbeki, former South African President, brought the challenge of money laundering closer home to Nigeria as the country is ranked first among 10 African countries by cumulative illicit financial flows from 1970 to 2008 and with a cumulative illicit financial flow of $217.7 billion, which is about 30.5 per cent share in Africa’s total IFFs.

His words: “Imagine how many schools, hospitals, road arteries, refineries, electricity power stations and so on, $217 billion could have provided.

“Imagine how many pregnant women would have been saved and the number of children that would get quality education, the number of small businesses that would have been powered from the national grid and empowered by small grants.

“Imagine the impact we could have made in the fight against terrorism.

“As if that report was not gloomy enough, the Global Financial Integrity, in its December, 2014 report, Illicit Financial Flows From The Developing World: 2003 to 2012, posited that developing and emerging economies lost US$6.6 trillion in illicit financial flows from 2003 to 2012, while illicit outflows are increasing at a staggering average rate of 9.4 per cent per year-almost twice as fast as the global GDP.

Lamorde said that these statistics when considered were enough to cause worry, because Nigeria was in a very unsafe position, considering her size, materialism and deviant religious practices, which reinforced the practice of ‘not looking a gift horse in the mouth,’ dubious business practices, weak regulations and peculiar enforcement environment.

“If we throw in the myriad of other challenges that we have as a nation, then we would begin to see the faint outlines of the horror that we face in money laundering,” he advised.

Larmorde, who charged the bankers to go beyond making the workshop a ‘routine old pals’ gathering networks, but to work with solid commitments and take far-reaching measures that would eradicate money laundering, added that Nigeria can no longer afford to sit on the fence in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

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