Guinea

The Republic of Guinea has suffered from civil unrest in recent times. This and other antecedents have left the economy badly wounded and most of the institutions of governance fragile. The Republic of Guinea adhered to, signed, or ratified the main international instruments:

1) The UN Convention against the illicit traffic of Narcotics and Psychotropic substances of December 20, 1988. Date of adhesion: December 27, 1993.

2) The International Convention for the repression of the financing of Terrorism of December 9, 1999. Date of signature: November 16, 2001; date of ratification: July 14, 2003.

3) The UN Convention against Organized Trans-national Criminality of December 15, 2000. Date of adhesion: November 9, 2004.

4) The International Convention for the repression of terrorist attacks with explosive adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 15, 1997. Date of adhesion: September 7, 2000. 69.The Republic of Guinea has also entered into several bilateral Judiciary Cooperation Agreements in criminal matters.

Upon adoption of the UNSC Resolution 1373, a Working Group was formed under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation to be in charge of its application.This group has issued two reports on the status of the fight against terrorism in Guinea. A draft decree to set up this working group as a National AML/CFT Committee is in the process of being adopted. Despite the absence of an administrative act relating to the creation or functioning of this structure, there is effectively a team composed of two representatives from the Central Bank, two representatives from the Ministry of Finance, two representatives from the Ministry of Security, and one representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. This informal committee meets either at the headquarters of the Central Bank or in the Conference Room of the Ministry of Security. However, the committee remains incapacitated and ineffective.

The international and regional instruments relating to the fight against money laundering have been transposed into the national law by the elaboration and adoption, in November 2006, of the relevant Draft Law which is in the process of being enacted.

With regard to the financing of terrorism legislation, the Government is working on the elaboration of a relevant draft law based on the model law adopted by GIABA, which will be submitted to Parliament before the end of 2007. Law 98/036 of December 31, 1998 about the Criminal Code reflects the criminal policy base of the Republic of Guinea. It is elaborated to ensure very severe repression of offences including various life- or freedom-related violations, or involving drugs and money laundering.

The Republic of Guinea has not created a CENTIF as yet; no decree has been issued to that effect. This is a fundamental weakness in the AML/CFT framework in the country. And while Guinea is vulnerable to drug trafficking, there is also a potential risk for money laundering and terrorist financing. Guinea is the only Francophone country that is not a member of the UEMOA. The Republic of Guinea has its own monetary system, stewarded by the Central Bank, with at its head a Governor who has the rank of Minister, and attends cabinet meetings. It then behooves the Central Bank,through its different structures, to watch over the monetary security by elaborating on behalf of the obligors the measures and instructions needed in the framework of the fight against ML and the FT. The Central Bank created to this end an important monitoring structure within the General Inspection for primary banks and other financial bodies, tasked with watching over the good application of these measures, which are constantly tailored to meet AML requirements.

In the absence of a CENTIF, some primary banks have been sending suspicious transaction reports to the Central Bank. At this level, the departments to which these files were submitted remained ineffective because t his does not fall within their attributions.

Overall, Guinea’s relative potential stability is not an adequate safeguard for criminal activities such as ML and FT. More has to be done by the country to introduce the basic infrastructure for AML/CFT in any real sense.