Special to ag-IP-news Agency
AMMAN - HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh expressed his pride of the Hashemite leadership for its continuous efforts enabling the Kingdom to be ranked 1st at the Arab level on combating ‘Money Laundering and financing of Terrorism’ Index by Basel Institute on Governance which is specialized in studying anti-corruption, public governance, anti-money laundering, criminal law enforcement, as well as stolen asset recovery.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh affirmed that this graet accomplishment was only possible as a result of HM King Abdullah II unique vision at all levels. The process started when the Kingdom established the Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Unit making the current ranking of the Kingdom at No. 36 internationally out of 149 countries.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s remarks were part of his speech at the Annual Forum on Fighting Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing, and Tax Evasion, in Amman, organized by the World Union of Arab Bankers in cooperation with the Association of Banks in Jordan and with an extensive Arab participation.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh urged the Forum participants to introduce mechanisms to fight money-laundering and to eliminate, though partially, terrorism financing by drying its resources. He further urged the important concept of (Know Your Client) by investigating actions that cannot be justified or prove not to be compatible with clients’ economic activities.
Dr. Abu Ghazaleh also advised the necessity of updating the client’s information periodically. He called on the concerned entities to activate the Compliance Officer Department (Integrity) to revise the financial transactions constantly; to increase the level of awareness of all banking sector employees about money-laundering, financing terrorism, and means of detection. That can be achieved, he said, by organizing periodical training courses to all sector employee as well as conducting fake money-laundering procedures to check their ability to detect them.
Further, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stressed the significance of developing bank monitoring procedures by the Central Banks, creating close channels between auditors, to check on any suspicious transaction, as auditors are the independent entities which can investigate financial transactions, along with clients accounting records and financial statements.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh called for imposing stringent penalties income and sales tax evaders, facilitating and accelerating litigation procedures, building database of all the Kingdom employees so all are committed to present data about their activities even if they are not entitled to pay taxes, and forcing all service sector employees to issue invoices with their institution tax number.