04 Jul 2019

Botswana has made progress in developing and implementing the structures required by its competent authorities to address the action items in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), says Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Kenneth Matambo.

Answering a question in Parliament from specially elected Member of Parliament Mr Mephato Reatile, Mr Matambo said ‘this was established at the FATF June 2019 meeting as per the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) of which Botswana has been a member since 1999’. 

Additionally, Mr Matambo indicated that ESAAMLG assessed Botswana for compliance with international standards for Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism and published the report in the ESAAMLG website in 2017.

 Mr Matambo said that  FATF developed an action plan in consultation with Botswana to address identified deficiencies, saying Botswana was currently implementing the action plan and providing progress report to the FATF’s International Cooperation Review group three times a year.

Furthermore, Mr Matambo said Botswana requested for Technical Compliance re-rating in October 2018, following the passing of 25 Bills related to Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism in 2018. 

He said the request for re-rating was discussed at the 37^th ESAAMLG meeting of Senior Officials and out of the 38 recommendations an upgrade was granted for 32 recommendations.

Out of the 32 recommendations that were upgraded, Mr Matambo said that those that met the minimum required standard of largely compliant were 19 and the rest were partially compliant. 

He said that the drafting of the Financial Intelligence Bill, Trust Property Control (Amendment) Bill, Counter-Terrorism Regulations and the Financial Intelligence Regulations were already underway to address some of the gaps that had been identified during the re-rating process.

Mr Reatile had asked the minister to state the progress made regarding the implementations of the 40 recommendations  by the FATF as per the ESAAMLG, of which Botswana has been a member since 1999. Ends