Chief Justice worried over non-enforcement of laws
The Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has bemoaned the country’s penchant for coming up with numerous regulations and legislative frameworks which are not implemented.
She wondered why many laws would be codified in beautiful language, “only for them to gather dust, without being fully implemented to achieve the desired effect”.
Mrs Justice Wood expressed the worry in a speech delivered on her behalf at the opening of the first panel discussion on: “Positioning Ghana against Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism: The role of Stakeholders”.
The event was organised by the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) and the Wisconsin International University College.
The occasion also marked the swearing in of the maiden executive members of ACAMS, Ghana Chapter.
Examples of inaction
Explaining her concern over the lack of implementation of laws, the Chief Justice gave the example of Anti-Money Laundering Regulations which prescribe that each financial institution should appoint an anti-money laundering reporting officer to implement its compliance procedure with anti-money laundering and terrorism financial strategies and programmes.
She said most financial institutions in the country had failed to comply with that law and asked, “What has the Bank of Ghana, in its capacity as the supervising institution, done to ensure compliance with the regulation?”
She also wanted to know how many reporting and accountable institutions regularly filed their reports on suspicious transaction, cash transaction reports, electronic transfer report, currency declaration reports statistics and cloned cheque report with the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) for it to establish the required monitoring mechanism.
Timely reportage
Mrs Justice Wood explained that the law required that those reports were submitted frequently and in a timely manner to enable the FIC to take decisive action by identifying proceeds of unlawful activities and make the information available to investigative and law enforcement authorities for action to be taken.
She described the panel discussion as timely, especially coming on the heels of terrorists attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Kenya which led to the death of scores of people, including Ghana’s Prof Kofi Awoonor.
Training of Justices
She said the training of judges of the Judiciary had led to the speedy disposal of cases involving money laundering and terrorist financing, freezing and confiscation of substantial proceeds of illegal activities.