Meet Sydney Asubo, Uganda’s chief hunter of money launderers and terrorism financiers Sydney Asubo, is the first Executive Director of Uganda’s Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), the financial crimes big brother created by the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2013. The FIA however started its operations on July 1st 2014. CEO East Africa’s Muhereza Kyamutetera, talked to Mr. Asubo, the Makerere University and University of Liverpool trained lawyer and former Director of Legal Affairs at the Inspectorate of Government for his insights on the past 6 years and the future of the financial crimes watchdog.

Muhereza KyamuteteraApril 22, 2020April 25, 2020

Sydney Asubo was appointed Executive Director of the Financial Intelligence Authority, effective 1st September, 2015. He is the pioneer Chief Executive Officer of the Authority. His past immediate position was that of Director of Legal Affairs at the Inspectorate of Government which is the main anti-corruption agency in the Republic of Uganda. He has previously worked as a Senior State Attorney in the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Uganda. He has extensive experience in both prosecuting serious crime and in Criminal Justice Policy work locally and internationally.

In simple terms, tell us about the Financial Intelligence Authority, its mandate, and why it’s important for a country like Uganda? The background to this all was the phenomenal growth in organised crime in the 1980s. Very few people were getting convicted of organised crime especially drug trafficking because the drug traffickers (the mafias) in America and in Europe would find a way of making sure that witnesses don’t get to testify, either by killing them off or by intimidating them or bribing them off. The response by the justice system was that at least if you cannot prosecute the…

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