The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), published in 2023, indicates that Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mali are subject to increased monitoring and are subject to individual action plans to fill the strategic gaps in their systems to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism (LBC/FT). The said countries have made high-level political commitments and are collaborating with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and GIABA in correcting their strategic shortcomings.
Between drug trafficking with record seizures of hard drugs in particular by the National Navy, the Police and Customs, etc. and fake bank notes and black notes, the last seizure of which by Customs took place a few days ago in Goudomp (Sédhiou), for an equivalent of more than 5 billion FCFA which risked being broken down on the market as part of the cashew marketing campaign which is opening, Senegal has its work cut out for it in its fight against illicit financial flows and money laundering.
In the 2022 Monitoring Reports (RDS), with reassessment of scores, of the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), Senegal is ranked second and third respectively. These reports were examined and adopted respectively during the February and May/June Plenary meetings. And it appears that Senegal has made progress in correcting the technical compliance deficiencies identified in the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) and has had a reassessment of the scores in 14 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) rated PC/NC.
This progress is mainly the result of legislative reforms carried out. The said report mentions that Senegal has completed the National Risk Assessment (NRA) process, disseminated the results of the assessment to all AML/CFT stakeholders and developed a national risk-based AML/CFT strategy. identified. It also promulgated Law 2018-03 which requires Financial Institutions (FIs) and Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs) to have policies and procedures to mitigate and manage risks; assess and understand their ML/TF risks and the obligation for Financial Institutions (FIs) and DNFBPs to apply enhanced due diligence measures in the event of higher risks. However, reporting entities have not yet implemented a risk-based compliance approach.
Note that through the AML/CFT Law No. 2018-03, Senegal now requires professional fiduciaries to maintain accurate and timely information collected from their clients and to communicate trust information to the authorities. competent authorities, financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions. The law provides for the power of competent authorities to have timely access to information on legal arrangements. However, the following gaps remain relating to the obligation to maintain information about the trustee, protector, beneficiary or class of beneficiaries and other agents providing services to the trust, the obligation for trustees to declare their status to reporting entities when establishing a business relationship, the formal mechanism for exchanging information available on trusts or other legal arrangements at national level, sanctions against non-professional trustees for not -compliance with their obligations, sanctions in the event of non-compliance with the obligation to make information on trusts available to the competent authorities in a timely manner. Therefore, the rating of R.25 was raised from NC to LC.
JEAN PIERRE MALOU
