A lack of cooperation among some companies has cast doubts on South Africa’s plans to get off the greylisting by next year.
In an interview with SABC News, the Financial Intelligence Centre says that legal and property practitioners are among the most problematic sectors.
It says they are not fully cooperating with its risk assessment whose aim is to identify high-risk entities the Financial Action Task requires.
The centre’s Executive Manager for Compliance says, “It sends a very bad signal to our reviewers in FATF that we are slipping up the first hurdle that is the concert. It sends a message [that] we perhaps will slip on all other timelines like September, June and January 2025.”
He adds: “What will happen is if you slip on the May 24 timeline, it raises a lot of questions, a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the supervision and more importantly for business to be a good corporate citizen and to join us to fight money laundering.”
Pressure is now on to get SA removed from the greylist:
EXPLAINER | What does South Africa’s greylisting mean?
GREYLISTING FAST FACTS complete by SABC Digital News
