”The Grey Listing is an opportunity to fight against financial crimes’

Last week, South Africa was put on a ‘grey list’ by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for falling short of certain international standards for the combating of money laundering and other serious financial crimes. In a public letter the RSA President comments on this directmy to the people of the republic.

’The FATF is a global body that aims to tackle global money laundering and terrorist financing. South Africa has been a member of FATF for the last 20 years due to our commitment to fight these criminal activities both at home and across the world’.

’The listing of South Africa as a ‘jurisdiction under increased monitoring’ – commonly known as grey listing – has caused much concern about the state of our financial institutions, law enforcement agencies and investment environment. The situation is concerning but less dire than some people suggest’.

”As a country that both values and enforces the rule of law, the grey listing is an opportunity for us to tighten our controls & improve our response to organised crime. This will ultimately place us on a stronger footing to effectively fight these crimes”

Cyril Ramphosa, President

In the letter he says: ’

As a country we welcome the intensified monitoring by FATF. We have a focused action plan in place to address the remaining deficiencies identified by the FATF. Most of these deficiencies relate to the implementation of our laws. For example, we need to be able to demonstrate, among other things, an increase in the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex money-laundering and terrorism financing, an increase in mutual legal assistance requests to other countries, an increase in the use of financial intelligence by law enforcement agencies, and the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions.

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. 

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’.