22 Feb 2017

World Bank Country representative, Ms Elene Imnadze has congratulated Botswana government and its partners for successful completion of the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing Terrorism National Risk Assessment Project (NRA).

Speaking at a financial management workshop attended by, among others, officials from financial institutions, security agents and the legal fraternity recently, Ms Imnadze commended all participants on the quality of the work done as well as diligence and dedication many had contributed to such effort.

She noted that recommendation number one of the report made the assessment of money laundering/terrorism financing risks a mandatory requirement for each jurisdiction, adding that completing the NRA exercise was a significant accomplishment.

“In fact, Botswana is a leading country; the 11th country in Africa to complete the extensive National Risk Assessment. This work represents an achievement, toward which most other countries of the world are still working,” she said.

The Financial Action Task Force 40 recommendations, revised in 2012, made a risk-based approach to the foundation of a country’s prevention and reaction mechanisms against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Again, she said the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group was finalising Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing Terrorism Evaluation of Botswana.

Thus, she said she was optimistic that when that evaluation report was adopted and published, Botswana would use it together with the NRA report and action plan to step up as a leading country, modeling best practices that other

African countries can learn from in targeting resources most efficiently to build a strong and well-implemented Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing Terrorism system.

“We hope that using the World Bank’s National Risk Assessment Tool helped to add value to this important work by providing a more thorough understanding of how assessing actual money laundering and terrorist financing risks, on the basis of clear data, can contribute to targeting resources and improving implementation in order to enhance systems and procedures for preventing and detecting money laundering and terrorist financing,” she said.

As a result, she added, the risk-based action plan would allow for a real progress toward mitigating the risks of such activities as corruption, tax evasion, fraud, and organised crimes and also prevent distorting impacts of such crimes on the social and economic development of the country.

Deputy secretary for economic and finance policy in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ms Elaina Gonsalves said the NRA allowed policy makers to appreciate the overall landscape of the the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter financing Terrorism (AML/CFT).

Ms Gonsalves warned that while assessment should not be relied upon in isolation, the improved understanding it provided should assist government, law enforcement agencies, supervisory bodies and the private sector.

That, she said, would help in targeting their resources at the areas of high risk, ensuring that Botswana’s approach to preventing financial crime was risk based and proportionate. BOPA