“Unregulated sectors can lead to money laundering”

THE Financial Intelligence Center (FIC) has admitted that the lack of a regulatory body for certain sectors of the national economy can serve as a breeding ground for money laundering.


THE centre is also of the view that the unmanned borders of Ghana pose serious challenges to the fight against money laundering but is confident that a national strategy on an action plan currently awaiting approval by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP) will help plug these loopholes and tighten the screws against the money laundering.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FIC, Mr Samuel Thompson Essel, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the loose nature of the country’s real estate and car dealing industry, for example, can create the ground for money laundering.

The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr H.A.K. Wampah, said at the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG’s) luncheon in Accra last week that “the lax regulation of certain segments of the economy such as real estate industry, car dealers and non-governmental organisations also present themselves as fertile grounds for ‘sanitising’ laundered money.”

Speaking to the Daily Graphic in reaction to the FIC’s claim of being prepared to deal with such loopholes, Mr Essel said “some illicit monies, proceeds of crime and ill-gotten properties are in most cases easily used to acquire mansions, cars or even given as donations to some NGOs.”

He explained that unlike the financial, capital and non-financial sectors of the economy that individually come under regulatory bodies such as the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the transport business, car dealings and NGOs were yet to have such a regulatory body, a loophole that he said “makes it easy for people to launder their ill-gotten monies in those areas.

“If someone uses crime money to acquire a house, buy a luxurious car or donates it to an NGO, who is going to question him? Who even knows or monitors the amount of investments that go into that sector,” the FIC CEO asked.

He noted that the regulated nature of the country’s financial and non-financial institutions as well as the securities market made it easier for the centre and anti-money laundering institutions to “track the amount of money that comes in, which money is suspicious and who owns those monies.”