South Africa and the United States have committed to working together to combat illicit financial flows. This emerged at a short media briefing in Pretoria early on Wednesday, hosted by Deputy Minister of Finance David Masondo and US Deputy Secretary for Treasury Wally Adeyemo.
Masondo says the government is dealing with impediments such as greylisting that deter investment into the country.
Adeyemo is on a working visit to South Africa until Friday.
South Africa has been grey-listed by global financial crime watchdog the Financial Action Task Force for not fully complying with international standards around the prevention of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.
“It is for this reason that as this government, since President Ramaphosa took over, we have been sorting out our institutions, SARS, NPA and a number of them, so that we are able to combat terror finance; we are able to combat illicit finance, and other forms of corruption in our country. Because it is under those circumstances that investors would be comfortable to invest in our country,” says Masondo.
“We look forward to furthering our conversations both on how we deepen the work that we’re doing together to combat illicit financial flows in both of our economies and counter the financing of terrorism. The reason that terrorist or illicit finance flows through both of our economies is because of the depth and liquidity of our financial market systems, and because of the fact that they are so sophisticated. So, the actions that we take together can both protect not only the South African economy for illicit financial flows but also the American and global economy,” says Adeyemo.
