Monrovia – Liberia will shortly be downgraded by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in West Africa (GIABA).
GIABA is a specialized institution of ECOWAS responsible for facilitating the adoption and implementation of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures in West Africa.
Credible reports have it that Liberia failed to meet some of the requirements of GIABA and FATF as was stipulated in the fifth follow-up report during the recent visit by a high level team from GIABA.
The report furthered that Liberia has not completed, passed, approved and published in hand bills a comprehensive anti-terrorism act and provide supervision for regulators in the financial industries.
It also reported the inability of the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) to complete the examination manual.
The issue of financial and operational autonomy for the Financial Intelligence Unit of Liberia (FIUL) was also very high on the agenda of the GIABA delegation.
According to our sources, it was recommended by GIABA that Liberia intensifies its efforts to facilitate money-laundering convictions.
With this recent action by GIABA, it is believed that Liberia stands the risk of losing its position of being a full flesh member of GIABA, its status as head of ECOWAS, correspondent banks situations, and other undisclosed immunities.
Skeptics believe that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s recent pronouncement of four new regulations namely: regulations dealing with cross-border transportation of currency & bearer negotiable instruments; regulation for further distribution and action on the United Nations list of terrorists and terrorist groups; regulations on currency transaction reporting for financial institutions and regulations on suspicious transaction reporting for financial institutions are clear indication of the severity of the imminent downgrade.
Liberia has been given a one month to recover from these lapses in order to safe itself from the pending and imminent drastic action by GIABA to stay afloat.
Meanwhile, the FIUL, which is the central national agency for AML/CFT matters, continues to be tight-lipped on the issue. According to our sources, the FIUL will respond at a major press conference to be held soon.