The National Treasury said they are pleased with progress being made with getting South Africa off greylisting. Treasury said the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced the upgrade of four of the six outstanding action items at the conclusion of its latest plenary meetings in Paris, France.
Treasury said that South Africa is now deemed to have addressed or largely addressed 20 of the 22 action items in its Action Plan, leaving two items to be addressed in the next reporting period that runs from March 2025 to June 2025. “This would enable South Africa to be considered for delisting from the FATF greylist in October 2025.”
Treasury added that the FATF Plenary adopted the report and recommendations of the Africa Joint Group on 21 February 2025 and noted South Africa’s progress in its public statement. “National Treasury welcomes the efforts of financial and non-financial regulators and beneficial ownership registries and its law enforcement users, in securing upgrades for the four action items they were directly responsible for in the current reporting cycle.”
Treasury said that it also notes the ongoing efforts by all the law enforcement agencies to demonstrate the significant progress in respect of the two action items not yet upgraded, relating to the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex money laundering and of terrorist financing.
Treasury added that the FATF statement issued today after its Plenary states the following in relation to South Africa:
“Since February 2023, when South Africa made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and ESAAMLG to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime, South Africa has taken steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime including by demonstrating that all supervisors apply effective, proportionate, and effective sanctions, ensuring competent authorities have timely access to accurate and up-to-date BO information on legal persons and arrangements and applying sanctions for breaches of violation by legal persons to beneficial ownership obligations. South Africa should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its remaining strategic deficiency in demonstrating a sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and complex money laundering and the full range of TF activities in line with its risk profile.”
“The decision by the FATF Plenary to extend the reporting cycle for the two action items on investigations and prosecutions for serious and complex money laundering and terror financing activities reflects the fact that these are the most demanding goals of every country’s systems for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, particularly since they require a country to demonstrate that the improvements made are sustained over successive reporting periods,”added Treasury.
The National Treasury added that their investigation and prosecution teams are working closely in terms of a prosecution-guided investigation strategy to ensure that we demonstrate the sustained progress as required by FATF. “Our investigation and prosecution teams are working closely in terms of a prosecution-guided investigation strategy to ensure that we demonstrate the sustained progress as required by FATF.”
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