KAMPALA, Uganda | Lawyers and law firms have been urged to register with the Financial Intelligence Authority to enforce anti-money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism frameworks when conducting suspicious transactions with their clients.

While addressing a weekly press conference at the Uganda Law Society, the Chief Executive Director of Financial Intelligence Authority Samuel Were Wandera, emphasized the need for collective action among stakeholders, including lawyers, police, and the entire Justice system, to be cautious of fraudulent transactions that pose significant threat and its essential to recognise it as serious issue that requires a united response

According to Wandera, Uganda needs to tighten its anti-money laundering campaign and combat the financing of terrorism policies by implementing a risk-based approach to improve transparency and cooperation with international bodies and enhance financial institution supervision.

Wandera further said that the standards require the legal profession to enforce AML/CFT requirements because this is a profession exploited by criminals because they are seeing gaps in terms of the supervision of the framework and believe that the Law Council and the Uganda Law Society have their respective roles to play in this.

” There is a need to harmonize and create supervisory authority to ensure that the AML/CFTs are housed under one entity with the mandate provided in law.” Wandera said that this is something he will work with the Attorney General to have a clear framework before Uganda goes back for the 2028 assessment and that some law firms and lawyers are not registered with the FIA.”

Wandera added that some lawyers and law firms are expected to maintain digital records of client interactions for a minimum of 10 years and that therefore that will include client identification documents and records of their financial transactions through partnerships or your company; if you are also collecting and so proclaim so, you need to take those.

” So you should not transact on behalf of your clients with suspicious people who are not party to that transaction. So if you are involved in that activity, the Anti-Money Laundering Act will apply to you; the organization of contributions for the creation operation or management of companies in the specific activity will include when a lawyer prepares for vocal transactions, where investors contribute capital to a legal entity that conceived financing and refinancing transactions.” Wndera noted

Wandera revealed that, “I know criminals will need your services as lawyers, but you must be cognizant of the law, because I think you are the custodians of the law. You know what is legal and what is good. So don’t play, because this Act (the Anti-Money Laundering Act) is here.”

So I want to inform you that, because of the nature of the transaction loan balance target, you must pay attention and be conscious because for the laundering, you are equally liable as a firm, together with your client. When you are prosecuting a money laundering offense, you may not only indicate that you know this fact for your client. That’s why we require you to be cautious with all your clients to ensure that you don’t facilitate unknowingly.

Software Engineer Ronald Egesa, the executive director of Magezi Harvest, who was also the guest speaker at the event organized by the Uganda Law Society, said that lawyers should not be trained to perpetrate injustice in the name of chasing money, adding that the court issued a global index order to the effect that certain information be completely removed from the so that it cannot be found or accessed by one.

” The RNB President, Isaac Ssemakadde, while addressing law students at Makerere, advised them to be damn good citizens. So what does it take to be a damn good citizen? You come into a transaction. You want to benefit in one way, but you also know the other person that is getting whatever you are going to ask of them also wants to benefit in another way. Yes, advance good faith. Business is done on the presumption of good faith,’ Egesa stated.

Another speaker, lawyer Aziz Kitaka, noted that online lending apps should not be looked at in a vacuum and Google has policies that allow it to accept court orders. Digital lending apps engage in illegal activities like using AI-generated images to publish fake images and publish fake customer testimonials. These are against the UCC Advertising Standards 2019.