EU Blacklists Ghana …Over Money Laundering

Ghana has been ranked the seventh of high-risk third countries with Anti-Money Laundering And Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) structures that pose significant threats to the financial system of the European Union (EU).

This makes Ghana one of the twenty-two listed jurisdictions identified by the EU as having strategic deficiencies in their AML/CTF regimes per its 7 May 2020 new delegated regulation.

The countries are: Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran, Iraq and Jamaica,

The others are: Mauritius, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua Pakistan, Panama, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

The identification of such countries is a legal requirement stemming from Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2015/849 (4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive) which amends delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1675.

According to the Commission, the listing of the countries some of which have been on the high-risk alert from 2016, 2018 and 2020 would see Ghana and 12 others reaching the high-risk category of nations on October 1, 2020.

This is not the first time Ghana has been blacklisted by the EU on issues of money laundering. In 2019 Ghana was again listed by EU and in 2012 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

However, in the instant case, EU insists the listing is aimed at protecting the integrity of EU’s financial system and the proper functioning of its internal market.

Meanwhile, in 2014, the President John Dramani Mahama assented the Anti-Money Laundering Amendment Act (ACT 874) of 2014.

The law among others criminalizes serious offences including financing of terrorism, financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, other transnational organized crime or contravention of a law regarding any of these matters.