The Bank of Namibia (BoN) and the Namibian Police signed a memorandum of understanding yesterday to regulate their cooperation on the recently implemented Financial Intelligence Act (FIA).
The Act allows the Financial Intelligence Centre at the BoN to gather information from the financial sector in order to investigate cases of money laundering.
Money laundering is an act of engaging in legal transactions with money received from illegal activities.
However, the Financial Intelligence Centre does not have the mandate to prosecute individuals and so needs the cooperation of law enforcement agencies to carry out its function.
The centre will in future hand over suspicious material to the police and other law enforcement agencies who can then take the investigation further.
BoN governor Tom Alweendo, speaking at the signing, called the Police ‘one of the most important stakeholders we have got’.
Inspector General of the Namibian police, Sebastian Ndeitunga, said ‘the honeymoon is now over’ for people involved in money laundering.
He said some businesspeople did not even ‘have bank accounts’ and smuggled ‘suitcases full of money’ out of the country.
According to Ndeitunga, the Police had already started ‘capacity building’ before the FIA was implemented and was confident it could handle the added responsibility.
One of the BoN’s main concerns in the agreement is the confidentiality of the information it passes on so that leakages do not occur.
Alweendo said confidentiality was key because people would not come forward with sensitive information unless they were guaranteed it never found its way back to criminals.
Stay informed with The Namibian – your source for credible journalism. Get in-depth reporting and opinions for
only N$85 a month. Invest in journalism, invest in democracy –
Subscribe Now!
