wmlro.com. Sierra Leone improves money laundering regime
Sierra Leone's Attorney General is trying to get a new law to combat money laundering passed. The Bill is called "The Anti Money Laundering and Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism Bill." It's not proving easy.
A seminar organised by the Attorney General's Department held in the past few days is long on rhetoric and good intentions - but the Attorney General, Kerry-Samal knows that passing a law is one thing, making it work is another.
Sierra Leone is not without law: its Anti Money Laundering Act was passed in 2005 but even then it was, by the standards of the day, relatively primitive. Even so, it is doing better than a number of its African neighbours.
The pace of law-making has picked up - the AG describes the passing, in 2008, of the Anti Narcotics and Psychotropic Substance Act as "speedy," pressure arising from a massive drugs seizure that brought widespread concern that the country had, without anyone really noticing, become a primary transit point for cocaine en route from South America to Europe.
The Financial Intelligence Unit is part of the Department of Banking Supervision. Its director, Mrs Yeabu Kamara and Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Mrs Andrina Coker, both spoke at the seminar.
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