Tanzania Finance Minister Mpango says forex shops are money laundering conduits
Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Phillip Mpango
What you need to know:
Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Phillip Mpango said on Monday, April 1, 2019 that an audit into operations of bureaux de change in Dar es Salaam and Arusha has revealed that money changing shops were being used as agents for money laundering and capital flight.
Dodoma. Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Phillip Mpango said on Monday, April 01, 2019 that an audit into operations of bureaux de change in Dar es Salaam and Arusha has revealed that money changing shops have been used as agents for money laundering and capital flight.
Earlier last month, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) conducted an inspection into undertakings of about 80 bureaux de change in Dar es Salaam and established that almost all of them were flouting the law, regulations and procedures associated with the money changing business.
The shops have since remained closed and money changing services are now available in commercial banks and at bureaux de change operated by the state-owned Tanzania Postal Corporation (TPC).
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The Dar es Salaam inspection exercise came hardly four months since a similar one resulted into the closure of all money shops in Arusha in November 2018.
And, speaking in the company of the BoT Governor, Prof Florens Luoga, Dr Mpango said results of the investigations have revealed that money shops were also receiving deposits from some businesspeople, contrary to what is required of them under their business licenses.
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As a result, bureaux de change owners were contributing to the depreciation of the Tanzanian shilling.
“For instance, we found out that money shops spent a lot of Tanzania shillings in purchasing the foreign currencies but they were not found in possession of the bought monies (foreign currencies). They had no documents to show how the bought foreign currencies had been spent/traded,” he said.
He said the government has not yet nationalized any of the money, document (exhibits) seized during the exercise and that all legal procedures were followed in the process.
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Some of the exhibits, taken from the shops during the exercise include money, computers, mobile phones and money counters to help in the investigations.
