Plug money-laundering holes, says Clarke
Published:Thursday | January 30, 2020 | 12:17 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has urged the ministries and agencies of government with anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism finance (CTF) mandates to collaborate to plug gaps in the country’s regime.
Clarke, who made a comprehensive statement in Parliament on Tuesday, made it clear that Jamaica’s international counterparts in finance and business were required to make assessments on the strength of the country’s ability to effectively address money-laundering and terrorism-financing risks as a condition of doing business.
Outlining several measures that must be put in place to safeguard Jamaica’s financial framework and its security interests, Clarke said that steps would be taken to finalise the national system to identify risks associated with the financial and designated non-financial businesses and professional sectors, non-profits, terrorist financing, legal persons and arrangements, proliferation financing, crossborder activities, and tax evasion.
Clarke is also pushing for the inclusion of all designated non-financial institutions, designated non-financial businesses and professions in the AML/CTF regime, including the legal profession, and ensuring that these professions were subject to effective risk-based AML/CFT supervision.
He indicated that steps would be taken to complete legislative amendments to bring the microfinance sector under AML/CFT requirements, and start implementation to ensure that adequate risk-based supervision of the sector was in place.
strong measures
The finance and public service minister highlighted the need to put in place strong measures to enhance law enforcement and the justice system’s capacity to effectively address money laundering and terrorism financing.
As part of this effort, Clarke said that measures would be introduced to ensure an increase in money-laundering investigations through the use of financial intelligence information. Additionally, he said that the authorities would more readily utilise the toolkit under the Mutual Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act to support money laundering-related investigations, especially those involving transnational organised crime.
Another step to shore up the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing is to grant legal powers to the Companies Office of Jamaica to ensure compliance, through monitoring and verification – including through investigations or inspections – that basic and beneficial owner information held by the companies is accurate and updated in a timely manner.
Clarke told his parliamentary colleagues that agencies in the law-enforcement network made improvements to their operational frameworks that resulted in improved capacity to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. He said that more than 2,500 law-enforcement personnel, including investigators and police officers, were trained in the areas of AML/CTF.
“Increased training resulted in several money-laundering investigations, charges, and convictions over the period 2016-2019. One hundred and seventeen persons were charged with ML offences over the period. Of this number, 19 were charged with stand-alone money-laundering offences,” he said.
Discussing the likely implications of failing to strengthen a country’s capacity to effectively tackle money laundering and terrorism financing, Clarke pointed out that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was moving to penalise countries for falling short of its stipulated requirements to fight the global problem.
The FATF is the global standard-setter for money laundering and terrorism financing rules.