Search Results for: Congo

The precious metals and stones sector is increasingly under the spotlight regarding ML and TF, particularly gold. Given the fungibility of precious metals, the complexity of their supply chains and the varying levels of oversight worldwide, they continue to be an attractive means to launder money – especially gold, which remains the precious metal of choice for launderers.…

The European Commission has added the British overseas territory (BOT) of Gibraltar to European Union (EU) list of high-risk countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes. This latest update to the EU AML blacklist (1) means that banks and other AML obliged entities will have to apply enhanced due diligence when dealing with transactions with Gibraltar, which was ceded to the UK in 1713, having been seized during the War of the Spanish Succession.…

International solar energy providers are finding business opportunities in Africa as national governments and their development agency partners try to foster growth while targeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG), which encourages access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030 (1).…

Global progress on tackling the risks posed by money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) is “paralysed” according to the latest annual index report (1) from the Basel Institute on Governance. Over the 11 years since the first report, AML risks “have changed depressingly little”, said Basel AML Index project manager Kateryna Boguslavska on October 4.…

FATF has acted against Russia, further squeezing it from the international AML/CFT system over its invasion of Ukraine, that as of October 17 had killed 6,306 civilians (UN figures). The global AML body’s latest plenary meeting highlighted the “needless loss of life, suffering and destruction” caused by the invasion, with Russia violating “FATF’s core principles [on] the security, safety and the integrity of the financial system”.…

Zimbabwe was taken off FATF’s grey list in March, but serious issues still abound claim critics of the move – from corruption to large scale gold smuggling, while a controversial law on NGOs may be misused to go after political opponents, they argue.…

INTRODUCTION 

ACCOUNTING used to be restricted to financially measurable matters of profit and loss; expenditure and revenue; taxes and subsidies; investment and liabilities. But the mathematical and statistical skills underpinning a solid set of books and filed accounts are today increasingly being used to measure the environmental and social sustainability of a product, input, production process and supply chain.…

Sub-Saharan Africa has natural resources that aids the development of renewable energy, it has lots of sun, plentiful wind, and much potentially sustainable biomass. With the development of small-scale affordable renewable energy technologies, such systems have been promoted by major aid agencies keen to prevent deforestation and excessive reliance on fossil fuels, that – even where they are plentiful, have not usually led to widespread economic development.…

African students have been benefiting from an informal innovative online initiative helping them find jobs after they graduate. The iDEASlab (1) has in particular enabled higher education students to launch business ideas after graduation.

The network’s academics are Angolans based in the USA, Russia and Angola, who, inspired by their time at university, decided to work together informally to create development in their places of birth.…

The international gold trade is worth over USD6 trillion a year, according to the World Gold Council (WGC), but oversight of the supply chain is considered weak by many critics, relying on self-regulation, making it vulnerable to money laundering.

Gold remains scarce and hence valuable: from antiquity until 2019, just 197,576 tonnes has been mined – equivalent to a 21.7 metre cube, according to the World Gold Council.…