Inside new Bills introduced by gov’t

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Government has moved a step in realizing President Museveni’s legislative agenda for the financial year 2022/23 with five Bills tabled on Wednesday, 24 August 2022.

The Bills include the Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill, Partnerships Act (Amendment) Bill, Trustees Incorporation (Amendment Bill), Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill and the Insolvency (Amendment) Bill.

Terrorism

A proposed two clause amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act intends to create the crime of ‘proliferation financing’, which is with respect to nuclear, biological and radiological weapons.

Clause 1 of the amendment seeks to amend Section 9 of the principle Act by inserting Clause 9B to prescribe for the offence and its penalty.

“A person or organization commits the crime of proliferation financing where the person or organization (a) makes available an asset; (b) provides a financial service or (c) conducts a financial transaction and the person knows that or is reckless as to whether the asset, financial service or financial transaction is intended in whole or part…to facilitate any of the activities in subsection 2,” reads Clause 1(1).

Clause 2 lists the activities as the manufacture, production, possession, acquisition, stockpiling, storage, development, transportation, sale, supply, transfer, export or shipment of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Clause 1(3) prescribes the penalty to be imprisonment for a term not exceeding 20 years, or a fine of Shs10 billion or both such imprisonment and fine.

Money laundering

With concerns from Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa during the Wednesday 24 August 2022 sitting regarding Uganda’s absurd classification under the grey list for countries where illegal money gets safe haven, government now moves to tighten the noose around culprits.

Clause 1 of the Bill places the responsibility of ensuring financial institutions or persons coming into contact with suspect finances to be risk alert and develop capacity to forestall such transactions under the supervision of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA).

Non-compliance invites biting sanctions including a Shs30 million fine on the person responsible for ensuring compliance.

The amendment also widens the scope of crimes to align with the proposed amendments under the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill by incorporating the crime of ‘proliferation financing’.

On the Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, just like the Trustees Incorporation (Amendment) Bill, the amendments seek to answer a long held trusts law issue surrounding the definition of beneficial owners, whose definition has been expanded in relation to estates planning and trusts properties.

The Bills are sponsored by government, through Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Norbert Mao.

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SOURCE: UGANDA PARLIAMENT MEDIA