By Zuko Komisa
President Cyril Ramaphosa has stated that the government has undergone a rigorous process to address the issues that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has highlighted in his weekly newsletter to the country.
This comes after the FATF last week placed South Africa on a “grey list” for not meeting specific global standards for combating money laundering and other severe financial crimes.
FATF was created to combat the funding of terrorism and money laundering.
Due to its dedication to combating these criminal actions both domestically and internationally, South Africa has been a member of the FATF for the past 20 years.
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Ramaphosa said that ‘grey listing’ is an opportunity for us to tighten our controls and improve our response to organised crime.
“As a country that both values and enforces the rule of law, the grey listing is an opportunity for us to tighten our controls and improve our response to organised crime. This will ultimately place us on a stronger footing to effectively fight these damaging and dangerous crimes,” the President said.
“Our action plan to address these deficiencies is aligned with the work we are doing to implement the recommendations of the State Capture Commission as outlined in our submission to Parliament in October last year,” the President said.
Ramaphosa also asserted that the nation has made great strides in developing world-class expertise, reforming the law, and strengthening state institutions.
“We have restored credibility to key institutions like SARS and the NPA to enable them to fulfil their respective mandates. We have bolstered the powers of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) by establishing a Special Tribunal to recover public funds stolen through corruption and fraud, and an Investigative Directorate in the NPA to investigate serious corruption,” he said.
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