GIABA, an inter-governmental action group against money laundering in West Africa, says Nigeria recorded significant achievements in its war against money laundering and terrorism financing in 2023.

GIABA said this in its 2023 annual report, which was unveiled on Thursday in Dakar, Senegal, for ambassadors of member states and technical and financial partners.

According to the report, Nigeria made progress in addressing the technical compliance identified in GIABA’s Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) regarding various recommendations made to the country.

The report further said Nigeria had taken several measures to promote transparency and accountability in the administration and management of non-profit organisations (NPOs).

It added that the country raised awareness in the financial sector about the vulnerabilities to terrorist financing, developed and refined best practices in collaboration with the NPO sector to address deficiencies, and challenged information on NPOs suspected of being at risk of terrorism abuse.

“Nigeria demonstrated that it has mechanisms for international cooperation and procedures to respond to international requests for information on NPOs suspected of terrorist financing or involved in other forms of support for terrorists.

“Nigeria demonstrated that it has a system for maintaining statistics on its Anti-money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) system,” the report said.

Despite the progress made in the country, the report said the requirements for applying simplified due diligence measures were not consistent with the country’s assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

It added that the country did not demonstrate compliance with its internal procedures to designate target pursuit to United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR).

The report noted that GIABA had discussed and adopted the MERs of Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Guinea, which indicated that 88 per cent of the member states had been assessed.

It said Cote d’Ivoire’s performance showed that the country required major improvements in its AML/CFT regime, including in its understanding of the risks.

Similarly, the report said Liberia had demonstrated low effectiveness on 10 of the 11 parameters, noting that its shortcomings had impacted effectiveness, such as the lack of comprehensiveness of the National Risk Assessment (NRA) in some areas.

It also said Guinea demonstrated low effectiveness on all the 11 parameters, indicating that the country required fundamental improvements of AML/CFT regimes.

(NAN)