 Money laundering is the device for making funds obtained illegally, accessible for the personal use of perpetrators without being traceable back to their illicit source – typically by transferring the funds across international borders to legitimate financial institutions. The central concept of most Anti-Money Laundering Initiatives (AMLI’s) is to reduce the motivation for economic crimes by making it difficult to access their proceeds.
AML initiatives are also important to discourage the supply of funds to international terrorists and their organizations. Impeding the flow of such funds reduces the means available to terrorists and identifying their sources discourages their funders.
The relationship between money laundering and corruption is obvious. Regimes that lack systems of accountability and transparency typically allow for high levels of money laundering and corruption. Further, some of the poorest countries in the world are the most corrupt, as measured by Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report . According to Transparency International a one unit decline on a 10-point corruption index lowers real GDP by 0.3 to 1.8 percentage points. Looked at from the perspective of an individual firm, bribery adds to the cost of doing business (in Uganda, an estimated 8%).
 The principal global initiative to reduce money laundering to date has been the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) . The FATF recommends 40 +9 actions – for governments to adopt which have been accepted by most OECD countries. The recommendations include making money laundering a crime; requiring financial institutions to: know their clients; maintain records; and exercise due diligence regarding suspicious transactions.
Parliamentarians play a vital role in combating money laundering through their influence on legislation, by vigorous oversight of government activity and support of parliamentary auditors, and perhaps most effectively through personal leadership. They can engage the public and help build the political will to act.
GOPAC, under the leadership of Hon. Roy Cullen (MP, Canada) remains committed to working with its members to increase their capacity to fight money laundering and the recovery of laundered assets. To date, GOPAC has undertaken a number of regional level workshops to train parliamentarians on AML issues. Workshops have been completed in the Dominican Republic (December 2005) (Read Report) and Mexico City (March 2006) (Read Report) for Latin American and Caribbean parliamentarians), in Vienna (September 2005) for Eastern European Parliamentarians and in Kenya (November 2003) (Read Report) for East African parliamentarians.
Most recently, a workshop for parliamentarians from around the world was held as part of GOPAC’s 2nd Global Conference in Arusha, Tanzania (September 2006). This workshop produced a resolution which was accepted by all delegates present and which sets the AML agenda for the next two years (Read Resolution) .
For more information on the AML Initiative, please contact:
GOPAC Secretariat
255 Albert Street, Suite 802
Ottawa, Ontario CANADA
K1P 6A9
Tel: (613) 237-0143 x. 371
Fax: (613) 235-8237
secretariat@gopacnetwork.org
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