Regional Training of Money Laundering Control Officers of Non-Profit Organizations (Central Region)

On Wednesday 3rd March 2021, Training was held for a selected group of NonProfit Organizations from the Central Region of Uganda. The event was held at the Kabira Country Club and was officially opened by the Executive Director of the Financial Intelligence Authority-Mr. Sydney Asubo who reiterated the role that NPO’s play in the AML/CFT Compliance regime of the country as accountable persons.

Since February 2020, when Uganda made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and ESAAMLG to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime, Uganda has taken some steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime, including by adopting the National AML/CFT Strategy in September 2020. Uganda should continue to work to implement its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies as recommended by FATF by addressing the technical deficiencies in the legal framework to implement PF-related TFS and implementing a risk based approach for supervision of its NPO sector to prevent abuse of the sector.

The FATF is monitoring Uganda’s oversight of the NPO sector. Uganda has been urged to apply the risk-based approach to supervision of NPOs in line with the FATF Standards. In this light, the FIA is currently undertaking a risk assessment of the NPO sector. In addition to that, the FIA is advancing public awareness on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Terrorism Financing, jointly with The NGO Bureau to be taken to all parts of Uganda.

The training was undertaken by the Compliance department expounding on the thematic areas; Annual compliance reporting, AML/CFT Compliance culture, on-site and off-site inspections and undertaking the Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment. Mr. Patrick Ezaga from the NGO Bureau highlighted the ways in which the NPO’s can play a role in combating Terrorist Financing.