The funds of associations and non-profit organizations in the country in the future will be under the eyes of the state to prevent their use for the purposes of money laundering, terrorist financing and weapons of mass destruction.
A draft law amending and completing Law No. 05-01 of February 2005 related to the prevention and combating of money laundering and terrorist financing, which is expected to be presented soon to the two chambers of Parliament for discussion and enrichment, stressed the need to adapt national legislation to Algeria’s international obligations, especially with the development of crime and the emergence of new technologies regarding money laundering.
According to the project document, these developments necessitate the need to constantly adapt anti-money laundering and terrorist financing techniques to keep pace with the unfolding developments, especially in the legislative aspect of preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
According to the text of Article 5 A1, “The National Committee takes appropriate measures to identify, assess, understand and address the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to which the Algerian Republic is exposed.
Accordingly, every association or non-profit organization, receives, grants or transfers funds as part of its activity is subjected to appropriate monitoring by the relevant committee.
Associations or non-profit organizations must take a number of measures to avert falling into the trap of financing unknown entities, or even accepting suspicious donations, including refraining from accepting any donations or financial aid that the law considers a misdemeanor or a felony, whether from natural persons or legal persons or even organizations or structures that have been proven to be involved inside or outside the territory of the Republic in activities related to terrorist crimes.
The text of the draft also adds refraining from accepting any sums of money in cash without a prior license from the relevant ministry. The supervisory and control authority also sets rules aimed at ensuring that the funds of non-profit organizations are not used for the purposes of money laundering, terrorist financing and weapons of mass destruction financing.
The aforementioned authority is, in particular, entrusted with developing practical programs and measures based on a risk-based approach with the aim of combating money laundering, terrorist financing and arms financing, and monitoring their implementation, and conducting an assessment of the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing and financing proliferation of weapons associated with non-profit associations and organizations and ensuring that they are regularly updated, ensuring that all information, data and statistics related to associations and non-profit organizations are monitored.
The project allows the possibility of investigation against suspected money laundering by sending inspectors to banks and postal services to monitor financial documents in an urgent manner, with the preparation of a detailed report to be submitted to the competent authority in the event that there are doubts about the financing of these associations, and in the event that banks or financial institutions are unable to perform their role. In the fight against money laundering, the aforementioned committee can take disciplinary measures against the latter./ echoroukonline
