REVISITING THE NEED FOR A CONCISE TRADE-BASED ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING LEGAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK UNDER AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA (AFCFTA)

Abstract

Over the years, African continent has clamored for one indivisible Africa; a liberated African continent free from every form of economic, political and socio neocolonialism. With the determination to achieve this, various regional integration arrangements (RIAs), groupings and or economic integration blocks have been put into place. It must be emphasized that notwithstanding the existence of these regional arrangements and or blocks, though over-lapping, no or little successes have been recorded. This could be traced to the fact that the contribution of trade within Africa to the total foreign trade has been low compared to other regions and the fact that most African countries’ economies suffer from challenges ranging from lack of trade finance, acute macroeconomic disequilibrium, foreign debt services burdens and over-valued currencies. These afore-mentioned challenges have been the recurrent decimal over the years. The recent move to bringing Africa continent together economically and politically is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCfta) that came into force on the 30th of May, 2019. This initiative, however, has suffered setbacks and criticisms by scholars, researchers, trade experts, and political analysts. This paper therefore attempts to examine the scope of trade-based laundering of illicit funds within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCfta) and advocate for the need to have strong and coherent anti-money laundering legal and or regulatory framework that will help to curb trade-based laundering that may ensue therefrom.