Kenya risks being blacklisted by an international coalition fighting terrorism due to lack of laws to curb money laundering and terrorism financing.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setting body for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), says in a report that although Kenya has shown high-level political commitment to work with it and the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group to address its deficiencies in the two areas, it has not made sufficient progress in implementing its action plan.
Now the body warns that if Kenya does not take significant actions by October 2012, it will call upon its members to apply countermeasures “proportionate to the risks associated with Kenya” in its June 2012 report.
These concerns are also said to have been raised by the US State Department just before the recent visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
According to a State Department statement, before Mrs Clinton’s visit, the US had raised concerns over lack of an adequate legal regime to fight money laundering and specifically laws criminalizing terrorism financing.
Ahead of Mrs Clinton’s visit, the US Department of Treasury official in charge of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Luke Bronin was in the country and met with various leaders including the late Internal Security minister George Saitoti, his Finance counterpart Njeru Githae and the Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung’u.
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