CFA zone countries set to tackle money laundering

Finance ministers from West and Central Africa have set the end of 2002 as a target date for approving a law against money laundering which, they said, poses a serious threat to their countries. "If money laundering operations were to develop, they would jeopardise the stability of the economies of the franc zone," they said in a document issued at the end of a one-day meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon, with French cooperation minister Charles Josselin and former French prime minister Michel Rocard. The franc zone includes member countries of the West African Economic and Financial Union (UMOEA- French acronym) and the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC). The UMOEA states are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo while CEMAC comprises Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad and Central African Republic. Participants in the meeting, which discussed ways to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism, noted that the rapid development of new payment mechanisms linked to new technologies tended to provide increasingly sophisticated tools for whitewashing money derived from crime while preserving the anonymity of transactions. The meeting called on UMOEA, CEMAC and the Comoro Islands to take steps to legislate against money laundering by the end of the year. "Any delays in this regard could penalise the development of the economies of the zone, especially their financial markets and send a negative signal to the international community," the ministers said. With a view to improving coordination in the fight against money laundering, some countries have begun drawing up lists of institutions which, they say, participate in such activities, and sharing them with other members of the franc zone. Cameroon's minister of economic affairs and finance, Meva'a Meboutou, said the names and contact details of such individuals and companies had been sent to banking institutions in his country. "These banks have to monitor the financial operations of certain businessmen who try to exploit Cameroon's territory to whitewash dirty money," he said on Monday at a joint news conference with Josselin. Issues addressed by Josselin at the news conference included the fate of the CFA franc which, he said, would not be devalued as a result of the replacement of the French franc and other European currencies by the euro. The switch to the euro has not affected the solidity of the CFA franc, he said. Josselin also said that France would continue to support African countries. Paris is the main source of bilateral aid to member countries of the franc zone. The 2.02 billion euros it provided them in 2000 accounted for about 42 percent of all public bilateral development aid they received in that year.