Kenya hosts continental training to combat tax offences

In a bid to curb money laundering also known as aid terrorism Kenya Revenue Authority has partnered with OECD to launch the Africa Tax Academy for Tax and Financial Crime Investigations in Africa.

Twenty-Four participants from different government agencies in Kenya and various countries in Africa have commenced a training aimed at empowering them to detect and combat economic crimes. The eight-day programme on Asset Recovery: Freezing and Seizing Assets Programme is aimed at improving the ability of tax and financial crime investigators to detect and combat economic crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering and corruption.

The training which is being hosted by Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) seeks to equip participants with key modern skills required to ensure successful asset recovery. This includes the ability to trace transactions through complex financial arrangements and use of sophisticated techniques to identify links between suspects and illicit financial activities and the assets acquired from these activities.

The course is an important platform that will provide a good understanding of the significance of effective cooperation among the agencies and countries represented in combating tax and financial crimes alongside enabling participants to have an increased awareness of current risks and trends in asset recovery including conviction based and non-conviction based confiscation, prosecution challenges and best practices among other skills.

The program, which is the third to be held under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Africa Academy for Tax and Financial Crime Investigation, started on 12^th November, 2018 and will end on 21^st November, 2018 at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, Nairobi.

Other partners in the training program are the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) and Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Kenyan delegates are drawn from various agencies led by KRA, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), Ministry of Interior and National Coordination, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), Assets and Recovery Agency, Financial Reporting Centre and Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

The participants are experts in tax and financial crime investigators, prosecutors, financial analysts, and judicial officers. The training is also steered by an international faculty of senior and experienced tax and other financial crime investigators drawn from United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Portugal.

Tax evasion, money laundering and corruption largely affect developing countries and have been cited as the major obstacles to mobilization of domestic resources to finance development in a sustainable way.