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The country’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), in collaboration with Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Stakeholders on Monday 25th July, 2022, commenced a five- day workshop on the second National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment.
The event which took place at the New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown is financially and technically supported by GIABA and the Government of Sierra Leone.
The Assessment is said to be guided by the World Bank National Risk Assessment Tools which can be adopted as needed to the country and sector environments.
In recognition of the various support in strengthening the AML/CFT regime in Sierra Leone, the Director of Financial Intelligence Unit Sierra Leone, Mr. David N. Borbor, registered his profound gratitude to the government of President Julius Maada Bio in particular and the Chair of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for his guidance and support.
“We wish to further acknowledge our international partners including the US-OTA, the World Bank, GIZ, UNODC, IMF etc., for their unweaving support to the work of the financial Intelligence Unit and in strengthening their AML/CFT system to meet international standard”, Mr. Borbor noted.
The National Risk Assessment as he put it, is a comprehensive process that will help the country identify, asses, and understand the risks and threats for Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Proliferation Financing, so they can carefully asses the strength of the existing mitigation measures and map out vulnerability that may need to be reduced so the country will not be used as safe-haven for criminals and their ill-gotten gains.
The FIU Director further maintained that the assessment also intended to be an input to the National AML/CFT strategy, as part of the country’s overall AML/CFT risk management process. Their process, Mr. Borbor pointed will further help them to forge better public-private sector dialogue because the resulting findings and conclusions will depend on the outputs from the private sector as well as government experts.
In his remarks, Muazu Umaru, Director Policy and Research, GIABA, said the Secretariat provided both financial and technical support to Sierra Leone to enable the country to update it’s NRA, focussing on emerging risks that were not properly assessed during the first NRA process and other areas that will require new knowledge and understanding. He added that it is their hope that during the second NRA, Sierra Leone will be able to effectively and comprehensively identify, assess, analyze, and understand it’s ML/T/PF risks and put in place robust measures to mitigate those risks.
“Considering that some of you are already familiar with the risk assessment process, I urge you to participate effectively in the workshop to enhance your knowledge and sharpen your skills for the task ahead…The task will not be easy, and the road will be bumpy. However, you can count on GIABA to accompany you throughout the process…I also wish to call on you to share the knowledge and skills you will gain in this process with your colleagues who could not be part of this event…Permit me to conclude my remarks by expressing my profound appreciation to the Government and people of Sierra Leone for the excellent cooperation and collaboration we have had so far”, he noted.
The five days National Risk Assessment Workshop was officially opened by the Deputy Minister of Finance 1, Mr. Sheku Ahmed F. Bangura on be half of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Denis Sandy
Giving the keynote address, he expressed government’s sincere gratitude to the Inter-Governmental Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), the World Bank and other International partners in recognition of their tremendous efforts in providing the required financial and technical support towards the current project and so many others.
