The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has
debunked claims that the omission of the word “fraud’’ in Nigeria’s 2011
Anti-money Laundering Act was deliberate.

The commission’s secretary Emmanuel Akomaye, said on Sunday
in Abuja that the declaration by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that
the omission was probably deliberate was not true.

The FATF is a Paris-based global association of 186
countries demanding transparency before dealing in financial transactions
between themselves and with other countries of the world.

It is meeting on October 15 in France to determine whether
Nigeria should be one of the countries to be delisted from the group, a
development which could bar Nigeria from financial transactions with other
countries if it did not fine-tune its antimony laundering and anti-money laws.

The objectives of the FATF are to set standards and promote
effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for
combating money laundering, terrorism financing and other related threats to
the integrity of the international financial system.

Akomaye said that the word “fraud’’ was contained in the
draft bill that was passed by the National Assembly, but that its omission in
the final bill must have been an error during printing.

He also debunked allegations of possible and deliberate
narrow definition of the word “fund’’ in the countries funding of terrorism and
criminalising of terrorism law.

“Truly, EFCC was part of the process that led to the
enactment of the 2011 Anti-money Laundering and the Prevention of Terrorism
Act; I would rather say that it was the Printer’s Devil that the word fraud was
omitted.

“Because in the draft bill, fraud was there.

“In Section 15 of the money laundering Act which is the
subject issue in this amendment, there are 20 offences which the FATF regard as
predicate offences to money laundering and fraud is one of them.

“So for your law to meet standards set by the FATF, all the
20 offences must be included in your predicate offences for money laundering,
unfortunately fraud was omitted. “Not only fraud, there was also the omission
of sexual exploitation of children. I wouldn’t say it was deliberate. The
National Assembly meant well.

“If the National Assembly included corruption which is one
of our biggest challenges, I don’t think that deliberately the word “fraud”
would have been omitted, so it was, like I said, probably a Printer’s Devil.

Akomaye told our reporter that although sexual exploitation
might not be a serious offence in Nigeria, it was a serious one in other parts
of the world were syndicates took advantage of children as sex workers to make
money.

He said that money made by such criminal means was also
considered as dirty money by the FATF and should be included in the list of
offences as such monies were usually laundered to make them look clean.

He said that South Africa was the only African country that
had been fully registered as a member of the FATF as Nigeria still needed to
fine-tune its laws to continue to engage in financial transactions with other
members of the FATF.

“You cannot be a member when you are deficient in some of
the things that they are asking you to do; you have to clear yourself of all
those issues before you can be so considered.

“Given our size, one of the considerations for admission to
both the FATF and your listing as a potential anti-money laundering risk is the
size of the economy.

“Once your economy has a GDP of over five billion dollars,
you are eligible to be scrutinised whether your financial systems has
vulnerabilities that could expose both residents and those who intend to do
business with such a country to any potential risk.