Monograph 108 complete download - Institute for Security Studies

Namibia
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1. An absence of comprehensive legislation to combat corruption. As previously
stated the legislation, a pre-independence colonial statute, does no more
than codify the common law crime of bribery. Its coverage is limited and it
does not cater for the new realities of practices occurring within the public
and commercial sectors. It does not address issues related to insider trading
and the abuse of price-sensitive information for financial gain. This is
particularly important in view of the fact that Namibia has a registered
stock exchange and stockbrokers. Money laundering could conceivably be
carried out through these institutions.
2. The authority of the Bank of Namibia is limited in scope to banking institutions.
Furthermore, it effectiveness in handling reports of suspicious transactions
is limited. Its capacity to analyse and evaluate data generated by these
reports is not measurable. Cases reported to it have not resulted in any
investigations that ended up in court or resulted in convictions.
3. There is no anti-money laundering legislation in Namibia yet. Thus money
laundering as such is not a crime in Namibia. Such conduct falls to be dealt
with under the common law and is investigated under the recognised
common law crimes such as theft, fraud, bribery etc. Bills on the Prevention
of Organised Crime, the establishment of a Financial Services Centre, Anti-
Terrorism Activities and Corruption are in various stages of development.
Save for the Anti-Corruption Bill, which has been passed by the House of
Assembly but which has now been referred to the second house of
Parliament— the National Council—for approval, all the others are still on
the drawing board and in circulation by the responsible ministries. They
are still drafts in circulation for comment and input by the various
stakeholders. With government’s attention focused on other priorities, such
as domestic violence, it is not known when these papers will be ripe for
parliamentary presentation.
4. The level of awareness of the nature, form and content of conduct constituting
money laundering at important levels is limited. For example, in the banking
sector most clerks who are the first point of contact with customers have
little or no such knowledge. However, bank managers do have the training
needed to identify suspicious activities on an account although this does
not mean that they can identify it as money laundering activity. This has a
direct and adverse bearing on their ability to evaluate information churned
out regularly by computer in respect of customer accounts. Thus it militates
against or reduces their detection capacity insofar as suspicious activity and
hence money laundering are concerned. All the banking institutions place
heavy reliance on the branches to know their customers, keep complete