IMF team assesses Sudan’s efforts to combat money-laundering and terrorism financing
August 19, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – A technical team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has arrived in Khartoum on Saturday to follow-up on the donor fund to develop Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) system.
According to the Sudanese network Al-Shorooq, the IMF team, which conducts its tenth visit to Khartoum, includes experts from Australia, Ireland, Canada and Lebanon.
The Director of the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU), Hyder Abbas said the team provides capacity building and strategic analysis training as well as monitoring the national risk assessment and developing control mechanisms.
He pointed the IMF team’s efforts target the workers at the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS), the FIU and the National Committee for Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism.
Abbas added the team would conduct its mission from 20 to 29 August, saying the donor fund has allocated $500,000 for Sudan in 2017 and 2018.
Along with the World Bank, the IMF provides substantial technical assistance to member countries on strengthening their legal, regulatory, institutional and financial supervisory frameworks for AML/CFT.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international agency on combating money laundering and terrorism financing, in 2015 removed Sudan from its blacklist, saying the east-African nation is no longer a threat to the integrity of the international financial system.
The Sudanese parliament adopted in June 2014 a law to combat money laundering and terrorism financing that contained articles related to consolidating investigations and financial intelligence which is the enforcement mechanism that receives notifications and information from financial institutions and other parties.
Speaking at a workshop organized by the European Union (EU) under the title “Combating Terrorism and Money Laundering” last May, the projects manager at the EU mission in Khartoum, Francesca Arato, said they are determined to support Sudan to meet the international standards to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.
She disclosed that an integrated program has been developed to provide €6 million to face challenges of terrorism and money laundering in the Horn of Africa, saying that extremism has become a threat to all countries and peoples of the world.
(ST)