Good morning ladies and gentlemen

Thank you all for coming

Acknowledge Latifah Merican Cheong and Emiko Todoroki of the World Bank and thank APNAC and the Parliament of Tanzania for hosting the meeting.
Congratulate World Bank for taking the initiative to organize and facilitate this workshop, and to Paul Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank, for taking a stand against corruption. We wish him well.

It is very important for the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) to work cooperatively with important multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, the Financial Action Task Force, the OECD, the UN and others. And this is what GOPAC is doing as evidenced today again with this initiative with the World Bank. We are working actively also with the IMF and the FATF because there is an important complimentary synergy between the work of these agencies and what elected parliamentarians and legislators can bring to the table.

I will describe later some of the work that GOPAC has undertaken in the fight against money laundering and some of our current initiatives and proposals (e.g. the `big bang`AMLI proposal; the draft Anti-Money Laundering Convention, and the proposal to work more closely with the Financial Action Task Force)
Legislators, like ourselves, can legislate and also hold the executive branches of our governments to account. We can demand transparency and accountability - which must be tailored and tempered realistically to the realities in our own worlds - but we can all make a difference.

Agencies like the World Bank can assist us with expertise, resources and advice on the ways and means to achieve our collective objectives.
The workshop today will be great precursor to GOPAC conference which will follow tomorrow.

This session today will provide us all with some background information and an opportunity to dialogue on the question of the linkages between corruption and money laundering; the legislative and other tools needed to combat money laundering; how to recover corrupt funds that have been laundered; and, how to deal with the sensitive aspects of politically exposed persons engaged in money laundering activities. (all of us in this room are by definition politically exposed persons!). More on this later...

It is not surprising that the World Bank has an interest in the fight against money laundering. The laundering of money is becoming a huge problem. Money laundering facilitates the conduct of corrupt activities; it supports terrorists and major criminals and de-stabilizes financial markets, and genuine economic activity.

In working with parliamentarians around the world, GOPAC has heard the message that the fight against corruption and money laundering must be dealt with simultaneously. They are the two sides of the same coin.

The costs of corruption are enormous in economic terms (estimates range from 8%-15% on the negative impact of corruption on a nation's GDP). Corruption (especially what I refer to as `big ticket`corruption as opposed to petty corruption) benefits the few at the expense of the many. There are also huge social costs, the creation of unjust disparities in income, the loss of hope for the disenfranchised, and threats to social order and democratic institutions.
Certainly we know that poverty and corruption are highly correlated.

What we don't know is which comes first - the poverty or the corruption.

In one sense, it doesn't matter. We know that poverty can be alleviated if corruption is minimized or eliminated.

Limiting the opportunity to launder money will have a dampening effect on corrupt activities.

After all, money laundering is the processing of criminal proceeds, including the proceeds of corrupt activities, in order to disguise their illegal origin.

Anti-money laundering policies and procedures aim to prevent such proceeds from being utilized in future criminal activities and from affecting legitimate economic activities.

The fight against money laundering is attracting more attention and support nowadays because of the heightened interest and concern about the laundering of money for terrorist activities. The work of GOPAC can benefit from this as we tackle especially the laundering of corrupt money.

Fighting money laundering is not easy. Witness the recent assassination of Russian Central Banker, Andrei Koslov (he pushed measures to regulate the Russian banking system - including anti-money laundering legislation).

I am looking forward to today's session and to learning more about how we can combat money laundering.

I hope those of you here today will be able to attend the two separate workshops at the GOPAC conference (one workshop on the 21st and one on the 22nd) on the topic of money laundering. We can build from today's session.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate.