Saturday June 7, 2014
Kabul (BNA) The Lower House has discussed and approved the controversial articles of Anti-Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism Laws.
Afghanistan has only few days to avoid international blacklist. Further delay was supposed to persuade international institutions to put the Afghan banks into blacklist which will cut off money transactions between Afghan banks and international banks. The Anti-Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism Laws have been discussed for several times and the parliament didn’t succeed to ratify the law on time. It is a fact that ratification of the law will certify and disclose all secret dealings and suspicious financial sources and it will prevent flow of illegal money by economic mafia and rest of the institutions or individuals involved in financial corruption.
Anti-Money Laundering Law is already implemented in many countries of the world to prevent the illegal activities of economic mafia and the money which are achieved through embezzlements, crimes and drug trafficking. The upper assertions are not baseless statements, because in the past, the government officials including President Hamid Karzai has expressed his deep concerns over the issue of embezzlements, corruption and drug smuggling, construction of high-story buildings, modern hotels and companies. The intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has threatened that Afghanistan will be placed on blacklist that would severely reduce foreign investments in the country if it does not take legal action to help prevent money laundering. Experts have said the blacklist could be devastating for the national economy, and pressure has mounted on Parliament to pass the two laws before the (FATF) acts.
Reportedly, 12 articles have been removed from the draft of the Anti-Money Laundering Law and the MPs voted to other remaining articles on Wednesday. A number of legislators on the economic committee have assured that the removal of the 12 articles would not be problematic. “Only one article of the law discussed” Economic Committee Member Abbas Ibrahim Zada said. “The removal of the 12 articles will not have negative effects and there is no need to be worried about it,” yet the previous Chairman of the Afghan Central Bank, Noorullah Delawari, had said that removing the 12 articles would be an issue and likely unacceptable to the international community. If Afghanistan does not satisfy the FATF’s standards, economic experts have said the blacklist could be catastrophic for the Afghan economy and would take five years to get off.
Economic analysts believe the further delay of the law could pose harms to Afghanistan economic development programs. It also leads to the fleeing of capitals and will decline domestic and international investments. Nonexistence of Anti-Money Laundering Law also led to collapse of Kabul Bank. Based on the UN report, between the year 2001 and 2010, the cost of drug smuggling and the money which is collected through drug trafficking is about $ 68 billion on the annual basis. According to UN office for Drugs and Crime, only 2 percent of the money goes to the account of Afghan people and another 65 billion goes to pocket of international mafia that persuades Afghan farmers to process and cultivate poppy.
