Interpol joins EU, Comesa to fight money laundering
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the European Union and International Police (Interpol) have launched a 1.3 million Euros joint partnership programme to fight money laundering.
This is a part of the larger EU-sponsored 37.5 Million Euro programme that was developed to combat piracy and increase maritime security in 2014.
According to a statement from Comesa secretariat, under the partnership, Interpol will support investigative capacity building of law enforcement agencies in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region in the area of financial crimes at the national and international levels.
The statement further says the Comesa component will address the whole range of processes in the fight against money laundering.
Comesa says it is also involved in building the analytical capacity of Financial Intelligence Units of the members that were most affected by piracy. Comesa is also supporting its members to develop or amend their Anti-Money Laundering laws to comply with international standards as defined by the Financial Action Task Force.
The statement quotes Special representative to Comesa Ambassador Alessandro Mariani as saying that the coming in of Interpol with its technical expertise was critical in the implementation of the programme.
According to a report by the African Development Bank (AFDB), many African countries, including Malawi, have the capacity to primarily finance their development needs but suffer a haemorrhage of funds through illicit financial flows which include tax evasion and money laundering.
AfDB estimates that Africa has lost up to US$1.3 trillion between 1980 and 2009 through illicit financial flows.
