{"id":251111,"date":"2023-02-24T21:13:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T19:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/treasury-on-listing-of-south-africa-by-the-financial-action-task-force?lang=en"},"modified":"2023-02-24T21:13:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T19:13:36","slug":"treasury-on-listing-of-south-africa-by-the-financial-action-task-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/treasury-on-listing-of-south-africa-by-the-financial-action-task-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasury on Listing of South Africa by the Financial Action Task Force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/1e270f34de86e08\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/1e270f34de86e08\" alt=\"National Treasury, Republic of South Africa\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/1e270f34de86e08\">Download logo<\/a><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/africarc\/loganalytics?press_id=241808&amp;press_source=National Treasury, Republic of South Africa\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Government notes the Financial Action Task Force&rsquo;s (FATF&rsquo;s) decision to list South Africa&nbsp;as a &ldquo;jurisdiction under increased monitoring&rdquo;, or more commonly referred to as FATF&rsquo;s&nbsp;&ldquo;grey list&rdquo;. The FATF made its decision at the FATF Plenary meeting which took place&nbsp; in&nbsp;Paris, France earlier today, 24 February 2023.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Following intensive engagements with FATF over progress made by South Africa since the&nbsp;&nbsp;publication of its mutual evaluation report (MER) in October 2021, including a face-to-face&nbsp;&nbsp;meeting held in Morocco on 13 January 2023, the FATF informed the South African&nbsp;Government that it recognized the significant and positive progress made by the country in&nbsp;addressing the 67 recommended actions or deficiencies highlighted in the MER. Following&nbsp;engagements with FATF, it assessed that the country needed to make further and sustained&nbsp;progress in addressing the eight (8) areas of strategic deficiencies related to the effective&nbsp;implementation of South Africa&rsquo;s Anti-Money Laundering\/Combating the Financing of&nbsp;Terrorism (AML\/CFT) laws as set out in the FATF&rsquo;s statement.<\/p>\n<p>These action items requiring&nbsp;attention by South Africa were adopted by the FATF Plenary on 24 February 2023, and the&nbsp;country is expected to address these deficiencies by no later than the end of January 2025.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The eight (8) areas of strategic deficiencies identified by the FATF require South Africa to:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>demonstrate a sustained increase in outbound Mutual Legal Assistance requests that&nbsp;help facilitate money laundering\/terrorism financing (ML\/TF) investigations and&nbsp;confiscations of different types of assets in line with its risk profile;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>improve risk-based supervision of Designated Non-Financial Businesses and&nbsp;Professions (DNFBPs) and demonstrating that all AML\/CFT supervisors apply effective,&nbsp;proportionate, and effective sanctions for noncompliance;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>ensure that competent authorities have timely access to accurate and up-to-date&nbsp;Beneficial Ownership (BO) information on legal persons and arrangements and applying&nbsp;sanctions for breaches of violation by legal persons to BO obligations;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>demonstrate a sustained increase in law enforcement agencies&rsquo; requests for financial&nbsp;intelligence from the Financial Intelligence Centre for its ML\/TF investigations;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>demonstrate a sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and&nbsp;complex money laundering and the full range of TF activities in line with its risk profile;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>enhance its identification, seizure and confiscation of proceeds and instrumentalities of&nbsp;a wider range of predicate crimes, in line with its risk profile;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>update its TF Risk Assessment to inform the implementation of a comprehensive national&nbsp;counter financing of terrorism strategy; and&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>ensure the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions and demonstrating&nbsp;an effective mechanism to identify individuals and entities that meet the criteria for domestic&nbsp;designation.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwana has informed the FATF President, Mr Raja&nbsp;Kumar, that the South African Cabinet has considered the Action Plan and committed to&nbsp;&nbsp;actively work with the FATF and ESAAMLG to swiftly and effectively address all outstanding&nbsp;deficiencies and strengthen the effectiveness of its AML\/CFT regime. Since the publication&nbsp;&nbsp;of its MER in October 2021, the South African Government has already demonstrated its&nbsp;commitment to implementing the recommended actions, including the speedy enactment of&nbsp;&nbsp;two major pieces of legislation (which in turn amended six Acts of Parliament) &ndash; the General&nbsp;Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and the Combating the Financing of Terrorism) Amendment&nbsp;Act and the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorism and Related Activities&nbsp;Amendment Act &ndash; in order to address some of the technical deficiencies identified in the&nbsp;Mutual Evaluation Report.<\/p>\n<p>Government recognises that addressing the action items will be in the interest of South&nbsp;Africa, and that doing so is consistent with our existing commitment to rebuild the institutions&nbsp;that were weakened during the period of state capture, the effectiveness of which is&nbsp;essential to addressing crime and corruption. The action items as formulated in the Action&nbsp;Plan therefore form part of the broader commitment of the Government to combat financial&nbsp;crime, corruption and state capture, as announcement by President Ramaphosa in October&nbsp;last year in response to the findings and recommendations of the Zondo Commission on&nbsp;&nbsp;state capture. The need to address the action items is also consistent with the national&nbsp;strategy on AML\/CFT which was adopted by Cabinet in November 2022, and will help&nbsp;strengthen the fight against financial crimes in the country, and assist in preserving the&nbsp;integrity of the country&rsquo;s financial system.<\/p>\n<p>National Treasury notes that there are no items on the action plan that relate directly to the&nbsp;preventive measures in respect of the financial sector. This reflects the significant progress&nbsp;in the application of a risk-based approach to the supervision of banks and insurers. National&nbsp;Treasury therefore expects that the increased monitoring will have limited impact on financial&nbsp;stability and costs of doing business with South Africa. This will, however, be monitored&nbsp;closely. Importantly, the costs of increased monitoring will be substantially lower than the&nbsp;long-term costs of allowing South Africa&rsquo;s economy to be contaminated by the flows of&nbsp;proceeds of crime and corruption.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of National Treasury, Republic of South Africa.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download logo Government notes the Financial Action Task Force&rsquo;s (FATF&rsquo;s) decision to list South Africa&nbsp;as a &ldquo;jurisdiction under increased monitoring&rdquo;, or more commonly referred to as FATF&rsquo;s&nbsp;&ldquo;grey list&rdquo;. The FATF made its decision at the FATF Plenary meeting which took place&nbsp; in&nbsp;Paris, France earlier today, 24 February 2023. Following intensive engagements with FATF over progress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-251111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/treasury-on-listing-of-south-africa-by-the-financial-action-task-force.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}