National Treasury amends laws as parts of FATF recommendations to prevent greylisting

National Treasury is making one last call to organisations and members of the public for submissions to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF) for the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting Terrorism Financing) Amendment Bill. The closing date for these organisations to put forward their submissions is 10 October 2022.

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The amendment of the laws seeks to address deficiencies in at least 14 of the 20 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, as identified in the Mutual Evaluation of SA report published in October 2021.

National Treasury is proposing to amend the following laws:  

•             Trust Property Control Act, 1988: Minister of Justice and Correctional Services

•             Nonprofit Organisations Act, 1997: Minister of Social Development

•             Financial Intelligence Centre Act, 2001: Minister of Finance

•             Companies Act, 2008: Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition

•             Financial Sector Regulation Act, 2017: Minister of Finance.

Parliament is calling for the issuing for submissions on the Amendment Bill by no later than 12:00 on Monday, 10 October 2022. Those who want to make submissions at the SCOF public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, 11 October 2022 should specifically make a request to the SCOF.

Submissions must be directed to the Committee Secretaries, Allen Wicomb and Teboho Sepanya, at 3rd Floor, 90 Plein Street, Cape Town, 8000 or alternatively, they can email awicomb@parliament.gov.za or tsepanya@parliament.gov.za.

Potential of being grey listed

South Africa was placed in a one-year observation period following a very poor ratings assessment in its mutual evaluation report, a study done by the Financial Action Task Force.

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The mutual evaluation report is an assessment of a country’s measures to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This includes an assessment of a country’s actions to address the risks emanating from designated terrorists or terrorist organisations.