BRELA intensifies education to combat crimes
THE Business Registration and Licensing Agency (BRELA) has intensified massive education to competent authorities on how to control companies’ beneficial owners from engaging in transnational organised crime in the country.
On Thursday, the agency convened investigation bodies in Dodoma for a long-day training, insisting that the latter was vital in helping the former to put up proper legal systems to improve service delivery to the people.
“Some companies were used to infiltrate criminal acts which are unacceptable to the community,” said BRELA’s Acting Director of Companies and Business Names, Meinrad Rweyemamu.
Mr Rweyemamu who was speaking when opening the training said that the criminal acts included money laundering, sponsorship of terrorism acts, grand corruption and tax evasion, among others.
According to Mr Rweyemamu who represented BRELA Chief Executive Officer, Godfrey Nyaisa, the agency will convene other stakeholders from the private sector, including lawyers, consultants and company owners on how to register in the central register for beneficial ownership.
In 2016, during the anti-corruption summit held in England, Tanzania was among the nations that pledged to establish the central register for beneficial owners and is among the countries under the Eastern and Southern Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG).
The Purpose of the ESAAMLG is to combat money laundering by implementing the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations.
This effort includes coordinating with other international organisations concerned with combating money laundering, studying emerging regional typologies, developing institutional and human resource capacities to deal with these issues, and coordinating technical assistance where necessary.
ESAAMLG enables regional factors to be taken into account in the implementation of anti-money laundering measures.
In 2014, FATF issued guidelines to the global forum on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes on how to deal with issues for collecting information for companies’ beneficial owners.
And as per the Tanzania Company’s Act, 2002, the office of companies’ registrar has been given powers to collect information for companies.
So far, according to Mr Rweyemamu, many registered companies in the country have been complying with the law to submit the names of their beneficial owners to BRELA, the sole authority for company registration.
Yesterday, the Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI), Charles Kasambula, said the training from BRELA came at the right time because incidents of transnational organised crime especially money laundering were escalating.
“We believe the training will help us to have new skills that will help us in the course of discharging our duties,” noted Mr Kasambula.
According to the legislation, companies’ information is transparently registered in a special registrar’s book so that any person can obtain information regarding the company at any time.
