CARITAS ZAMBIA SUBMISSION TO THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ON CABINET AFFAIRS
“THE ROLE OF THE FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE CENTRE (FIC) IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION AND OTHER FINANCIAL CRIMES”
Zambia Episcopal Conference
P.O. Box 31965,
Kapingila House
Kabulonga Road
Lusaka
Zambia
6th December 2019
“The role of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) in the fight against Corruption and other Financial Crimes”
INTRODUCTION
The Financial Intelligence Centre and its work has become known to many Zambians because of the trends reports it has so far been publishing and disseminating to the members of the public, pointing out the nature of financial crimes and corruption uncovered in the trend reports. According to the 2016 trends report, 4.5 Billion Kwacha was lost through tax evasion, Corruption, Money laundering, and fraud. The 2018 trends report, showed an increase of resources lost through these vices by 1.6 Billion Kwacha. The total amount reported to have been lost was 6.1 Billion kwacha. The FIC reports have generated serious debates on the role of the Centre. Some sections of the Zambian people have been welcoming the revelations and openly supported the Centre and urging them to continue the good work. On the other hand, some people who felt that they were named in the reports condemned the Centre saying that it overstepped their boundary. Apparently, even some sister institutions such as the ACC and the DEC condemned the FIC for the revelation of the information. Why? Caritas Zambia believes that, because senior government officials were somewhat linked to the reports, there seems to have been an attempt to cover up!
This paper is a response to the request by the parliamentary committee on Cabinet Affairs, to submit a memorandum on “the role of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) in the fight against Corruption and other Financial Crimes” focusing on the following areas:
a). The sufficiency of the legal and policy framework within which the financial intelligence Centre operates
b). The role of the FIC in fighting against corruption
c). Collaboration between the FIC and other investigative and law enforcement agencies in the fight against financial crimes
d). Strategies put in place to the fight against corruption and financial crimes
e). Challenges if any, being faced regarding the collaborative work
f). Make recommendations on the way- forward
The entire Submission to the Parliamentary Committee on Cabinet Affairs on The role of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) in the fight against corruption and other financial crimes by CARITAS Zambia can be found and downloaded at https://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/key-papers/file/147-the-role-of-the-financial-intelligence-centre-fic-in-the-fight-against-corruption-and-other-financial-crimes
