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ICRG Warns Nepal, Again

  1 min 58 sec to read

Nepal received yet another warning from the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) over its slow progress in putting effective anti-money laundering (AML) measures in place. A meeting of ICRG held in Malaysia in the third week of September warned Nepal to fulfil all AML-related commitments in time and it categorically said that Nepal’s deadline to do so will not be extended again.

“The ICRG meeting decided not to give any extra time to Nepal to meet its AML commitments which should have been fulfilled by December 2010,” said Nepal Rastra Bank Deputy Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari who participated in the meeting. Though Nepal endorsed an AML law recently, it has yet to implement Anti-Organised Crime Act, Mutual Legal Assistance Act and Extradition Act, which, according to the ICRG are effective measures against money laundering. While the draft of the Act against Organised Crime is under discussion at the Cabinet, the other two laws are awaiting Parliament’s approval. The meeting, according to Adhikari, also expressed dissatisfaction over certain provisions of the AML Act endorsed by Nepal’s Legislature-Parliament some four months ago. “The meeting concluded that the language of Nepal’s AML law is vague at many places while many of its provisions are inadequate, and thus, do not meet international standards.

So it has asked Nepal to amend certain provisions and also include some new provisions in the Act,” said Adhikari. ICRG’s pressure to draft a more stringent AML law comes at a time when Nepal’s private sector has been protesting the existing law calling it “too stringent”. Adhikari informed that ICRG has directed Nepal to include provisions for seizing the properties of the people suspected of money laundering and confiscating them at the end if such people are found guilty.

“The ICRG meeting has directed Nepal to amend the existing AML law by June 2013 to include such provisions,” said Adhikari. Asking Nepal to consider organised crimes as equivalent to terrorist activities, the meeting has stressed on the formulation and implementation of strong legal measures to counter terrorist financing.

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