Banjul, The Gambia Journal

Last month the Gambia Journal ran a series of article on the stated intention of the Central Bank of the Gambia to fight money laundering. Speaking at a Banking and Finance Exposition held at Paradise Suit Hotel last month, the Deputy Governor of the bank Mr. Basiru Njie revealed that the bank was setting up a Financial Intelligence Unit, FIU, charged with the responsibility of collecting, analyzing and disseminating information on suspicious transactions. At he time, we noted that, “ It is not certain when and why the bank suddenly appeared to have waken up to what has been bandied about by commentators and many in the genera public for about a year now.” The widely held public belief is that money laundering was responsible for the mysterious appreciation of the dalasi from the he middle of last year. The most widely held belief is that a feigned transaction involving the sale of half the shares of two public owned telecommunications companies Gamtel and Gamcel,  allowed lots of dubiously acquired funds to be transferred into the country.  We wrote then that . “There it will be laundered clean and returned back to the owners.”  We also wrote, the, that , “ So many Gambians in principle support any effort by the authorities to combat money-laundering. The problem is that few believe that the authorities are genuinely interested in fighting it.”

In that article we also noted that. “It was not until after the mission of the IMF staff of May 2008 that the authorities started talking of money laundering.” We also wrote that, “Many who know what money laundering is firmly believe that it has been going on with the knowledge and complicity of President Jammeh and some of his closest cronies.” 

Well recently The Gambia Journal has learnt that the Gambian government has recently turned down an offer from the UNODC, United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, to have the Central Bank of The Gambia, to install an anti money-laundering software to be abreast with latest tracking technology against organized global crime. The installation, would have made the country join others in acquiring benefits of goAML software which processes financial intelligence information, analyze large volumes of data and report suspicious money transactions.

The software was developed by UNODC’s Information Technology Service (ITS) which specializes in the development, deployment and support of software applications for use by Member States in the fight against illicit drugs and crime.  The goAML software, as well as other products in this family, are part of UNODC's strategic response to crime, particularly serious and organized crime. In today’s global economy, a financial correspondent told The Gambia Journal, terrorist financing and money-laundering have attracted much international attention and all governments have to be seen taking active part  in the struggle against them.  He added that money-laundering and the financing of terrorism are global problems that threaten the security and stability of financial institutions and also lead to undermining economic prosperity. A lot is being done in order to combat money laundering at the global level.

goAML is a UNODC response to combat money-laundering. It is an intelligence analysis system intended to be used by the Financial Intelligence Unit, FIU. As already noted above Central Bank of The Gambia last month announced that it had established an FIU, in accordance with UN recommendation. But it is for going the other step and using the standardize software that the government of The Gambia is refusing The institution has a big role to play in the fight against money-laundering as it has access to financially related information that provides a base for financial investigations. Over the whole world FIUs are responsible for receiving, analyzing and processing reports required from financial institutions or person referred to in national anti-money-laundering legislation. The software tool is also designed to be a low cost, off-the-shelf solution for developing countries that could not otherwise afford to develop such systems. According to UNODC, industry experts put cost of similar software between $3 and $6 million on the open market, while goAML is supplied free of charge, with only installation and licensing costs at about $200,000, a source at the Department of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, anonymously told The Gambia Journal.