Africa-Press – Mauritius. A three-day capacity building programme on terrorism financing investigation for law enforcement agencies, an initiative of the Ministry of Financial Services and Good Governance and the British High Commission Mauritius, will conclude, today, in Ebene.
Experts on anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) from Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury, namely the Head of Strategy and Engagement, Ms Alison Kelly, from the Sanctions and Illicit Finance – UK Technical Assistance Unit of Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury along with the Technical Advisor, Mr Ian Collins of the Unit, are the resource persons facilitating the programme.
This endeavour demonstrates UK’s commitment to support Mauritius in becoming a regional leader to combating illicit financial flows. In statement to the Government Information Service, the Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr Navindsing Jugmohunsing expressed his appreciation to the UK authorities for providing technical assistance through high caliber experts and FATF trained assessors to enhance skills of officers as regards AML/CFT.
The programme, which is simultaneously strengthening bilateral cooperation between Mauritius and UK, he indicated, has been organised following the delisting of the country by the FATF, UK and EU.
“We need to sustain the momentum that the country has created so that we remain a jurisdiction of high level of compliance and to ascertain that the AML/CFT frameworks remain effective, he said.
For her part, Ms Kelly highlighted that the aim of the UK Technical Assistance Unit is to help countries achieve Financial Action Taskforce’s (FATF) and global standards of the AML/CFT. The capacity building, she underlined, will support Mauritius understand and work towards these standards, particularly meeting FATF’s outcome 9.
“The way to achieve FATF standards is to have national cooperation between agencies”, she said, adding that understanding the risks of terrorist financing and working together to address these risks by going from policy to tax level will provide tips for financial investigation.
The Superintendent of Police, Mr Clifford Frichot, who is participating in the workshop, dwelt on the huge amount of work from various institutions which enabled Mauritius to exit the FATF’s grey list.
One of the key issues in achieving this success was capacity building, he pointed out, adding that after this training, “we will be able to implement all the strategies, put up structures and processes in place so that we can enhance our capabilities and effectiveness in achieving the standards of FATF and international standards that have been set for law enforcement agencies”.
Another participant from the programme, Ms Preeya Raghoonundun, indicated that it is a very good initiative of the Ministry and the UK to help investigators to have better view of the UK model that can be adopted so as to broaden investigatory capacities and adopt international best practices.
She further pointed out that the programme is an ongoing exercise to broaden the Mauritian network. “More such programmes will help enhance domestic investigatory capabilities”, she said.
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