JUNE 6, 2016
In an era where dirty money has found itself in the hands of rogue elements, the central bank has sounded an alarm of weak mechanisms in some of the institutions it polices, saying the terrorists could exploit these loopholes.
There is a high risk that commercial banks, forex bureaus and other money remitters in the country are not doing enough to scrutinize suspicious transactions, raising concerns that ‘dirty’ money could be entering Uganda, the central bank has said.
In its annual supervision report for 2015, Bank of Uganda (BOU) said: “Some banks were yet to effectively automate the suspicious transaction monitoring process, undermining their money laundering and terrorism finance risk management framework.”
On forex bureaus, BOU said it found lapses with regard to the identification of suspicious transactions and the recording of the source and purpose of funds. It was also noted that there was limited understanding of the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2013, particularly the requirement for enhanced due diligence for suspicious customer transactions, the report said.