Suspicious bank accounts to be frozen — FIC

Speaking on the sides of a lecture organised by the Danquah Institute in Accra, Mr Essel said so far between five and six cases have been reported to the Serious Fraud Office for further investigations and noted that should their suspicions be confirmed, the centre would have no option but to freeze the accounts and have the owners dealt with.

The centre, which was set up this year under the Anti-Money Laundering Act will be a data analysis centre, which will be expected to analyse full data available to it and convert, same to tangible information that other state investigative organs can use for purposes of enhancing their work outputs.

It is also to help prevent abuse of Ghana's financial system by money launderers, in order to preserve the country's strong reputation in the wake of concerns raised by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about the opening of an offshore bank in the country.

Mr Essel who also spoke about the regulatory measures being taken by the central bank to deal with the problem of money laundering, especially since the passing of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2008, said the aim of the unit among other things, is to check all forms of money laundering and stressed that this would be executed in accordance with the law.

Mr Essel said for the centre to succeed, there was the need for the citizenry to involve themselves with its work by volunteering information on any suspicious activities.

“When we have such information we will act expeditiously to ascertain the truth or otherwise”, he promised.

Mr Essel said all intelligence bodies are required to furnish the FIC with information of which action would be taken.

Speaking on the theme for the first lecture “Protecting Ghana and Ghana’s emerging financial offshore centre status from money laundering”, Mr John Hardy, an international prosecutor said, for the Act to be made effective, there was the need for a strong regulation, transparency and willingness to open up for external monitoring.

He debunked the assertion that the concerns raised by the OECD was colonialist as perceived by some sections of society saying, it should rather serve as a warning signal for the right things to be done to avoid falling into traps.

Mr Hardy, who is also the prosecutor in the famous Marby and Johnson scandal of which some Ghanaian politicians in the ruling party were allegedly involved said there are some countries seen to be ‘soft touch destinations” as far as money laundering was concerned.

He said for Ghana to be able to refute the assertion that it was a soft touch destination; there was the need to open itself up to international monitoring as and when necessary.

Mr Hardy said it was also up to the government to ensure that those employed to see to the implementation of the Act are astute and well trained to be able to withstand the temptations that may come with the job.

He also called for strong political will saying it was up to the government to ensure that the laws are operational to the core while ensuring that there is bi-partisan consensus on any aspect of the implementation of the Act.

The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, in a contribution, called on the banks to fully enforce the policy of “know your customer”.

He said many banks in the country for want of more customers were interested in taking deposits and not doing any background check of where the money was from and noted that for the Act to succeed, there was the need for them to strictly enforce the law.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

 

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta1

!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."