Unified action against money laundering needed

The fight against money laundering and other crimes should be a collective effort from all and sundry.

We welcome and appreciate the efforts of the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in this endeavour.

The sub- regional meeting on money laundering and other financial crimes organised by WAIFEM will greatly help African countries to develop critical skills in tracking money laundering and financial crimes.

While we to salute WAIFEM for its efforts in strengthening the ability of member states to implement measures against money-laundering and related crimes, and we urge member states to also do more in detecting, seizing and confiscating proceeds from illicit activities.

The continued effort of WAIFEM in providing relevant and appropriate technical assistance to member states is essential.

People must nowadays be on the alert against money laundering criminals, since they use many new techniques in their dubious acts.

With the advent of new technology, criminals always would like to think ahead of governments and other institutions to come up with innovations that would always make them smile.

However, with concerted efforts, most of them will surely end up in jail or frustrated over their failed attempts.

Once more, we applaud the efforts taken by WAIFEM to train government officials in money laundering.

We focus on the WAIFEM training simply because of the importance of the subjects being treated at the Banjul workshop.

We, therefore, challenge all participants to effectively put into good use the knowledge being acquired from the course in their respective countries.

There is an absolute necessity for our governments to take stringent measures in combating money laundering, since it has adverse effects on national economies.