Govt institutes reforms to prevent Uganda from returning on grey list
A bank transaction. Uganda has been removed from the finance grey list. Photo | File
What you need to know:
- Uganda successfully came off the grey list on February 23, 2024, but the country must ensure that its stays off the list.
Government has announced several reforms that seek to prevent Uganda from regressing to the grey list. The reforms will focus on strengthening the legal framework and improving the supervision of financial institutions.
On February 23, 2024, Uganda was removed from the grey list after fulfilling requirements that address money laundering risks within its banking system.
Bank of Uganda governor Michael Atingi-Ego, said government has amended the anti-money laundering regulations, noting that the Central Bank has conducted annual sectoral monitoring, assessed risks related to terrorist financing, and issued supervisory circulars, among other interventions.
Uganda, he said, successfully came off the grey list on February 23, 2024, but the country must ensure that its stays off the list.
The reforms include amending the relevant Anti-Money Laundering or Countering Financing of Terrorism laws and adopting the national Anti-Money Laundering or Countering Financing strategy to maintain comprehensive and up-to-date legal frameworks.
The reforms also emphasise maintenance of comprehensive statistics related to mutual legal assistance and other forms of international cooperation, cross-border collaboration, especially when conducting money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessments and the need to establish beneficial ownership registers that law enforcement agencies can access and track progress.
Former Financial Intelligence Authority executive director Sidney Asubo, said that whereas Uganda had been proactive in implementing the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) recommendation to regulate virtual assets service providers, there were no comprehensive legal frameworks to regulate their operations, including licensing, thereby creating enforcement challenges.
Therefore, he said, the Ministry of Finance should take the lead in bringing forward the necessary legal framework to regulate virtual assets, noting that the issue is not unique to Uganda, but also noted that whereas some banks may file suspicious transaction reports, the absence of regulation makes it difficult to fully address these concerns.
