At this first of its kind awareness workshop, invited speakers from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the FinMark Trust and a representative from AMLAC South Africa shared their knowledge and experience with the newly established council.
The main role of the council is to advise the Minister of Finance on policies and measures to combat money laundering activities and about other powers entrusted to the Minister in terms of this Act. The council should hold a forum at least twice a year where accountable institutions, government ministries, offices and agencies and supervisory bodies can consult one another.
“The Bank of Namibia is proud to host this workshop to Namibia’s first Anti-money Laundering Advisory Council. The Council is indeed an important organ in the implementation of the anti-money laundering legislation. Money laundering is not only a threat to the global financial sector, but if allowed to flourish money laundering has the potential to become a threat to the civil and political spheres,” said Tom Alweendo, Governor of the Bank of Namibia, in his keynote address at the workshop.
Section 10 of this Act prescribes that the Minister of Finance appoints members of the Anti-money laundering Advisory Council. According to the Act, the Council should consist of: the Governor of the Bank of Namibia, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, the Inspector General of the Namibian Police Force, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, the Director of the Namibian Central Intelligence Service, the Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission and the President of the Bankers Association.
Namibia is a member country of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that was established in 1989 by the G-7 Summit. This Task Force leads the international fight against money laundering and the fight has now been extended to combat terrorist financing. FATF has thirty-three members and consists of eight regional bodies world-wide that assist the FATF in fighting economic crime such as money laundering and terrorist financing. Namibia belongs to the regional body, called the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) whose goal is to evaluate whether regional countries comply with their international rules and regulations that is aimed at combating money laundering.
Namibia is not only committed to these international best practices as a matter of policy and as a result of its membership in ESAAMLG, but Namibia is legally committed to this anti-money laundering movement by virtue of it being party to the Palermo Convention. Accordingly, Namibia has enacted the Financial Intelligence Act (Act 3 of 2007), which aims to eliminate money laundering activities in Namibia and calls for the establishment of a Financial Intelligence Centre.
Although the Financial Intelligence Act has been gazetted, the regulations to the Act still needs to be finalised before the Act can become fully operational in Namibia. The Bank of Namibia has taken a consultative approach in finalizing the regulations. As from the beginning of September 2007, accountable institutions and supervisory bodies had the opportunity to review and provide feedback on preliminary draft regulations and exemption notices.