06 Mar 2022

In an endeavour to emphasise its commitment to the fight against financial crimes and money laundering, government has embarked on car dealership sector risk assessment.

Speaking at the launch of the assessment, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Wilfred Mandlebe stated that car dealership risk assessment was in accordance with Recommendation 1 of FATF, which requires countries to identify, assess and understand money laundering and terrorist financing risks in order to take proportionate actions.

“In compliance with this recommendation, Botswana completed her maiden National Risk Assessment (NRA) in 2017, and car dealerships were among the sectors covered in the NRA with the overall vulnerability of the sector being rated medium high,” he said.

He said the project affirmed the country’s resolve and commitment to continuously strengthen anti-money laundering, counter financing of terrorism and proliferation regime.

He said the recent re-enactment of the Financial Intelligence Act and consequential amendment of other related pieces of legislation were testament to Botswana’s continual improvements aimed at advancing Botswana’s technical compliance.

“While it is worth celebrating that Botswana has been removed from the grey list, it is crucial to highlight that there is post Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list national action plan, which ought to be addressed to further improve Botswana’s level of compliance with international standards,” he said.

He explained that Botswana was committed to the effective implantation of the FATF recommendations.

He highlighted that a lot has transpired in the car dealership landscape and the economy at large since the last NRA more than five years ago, hence the need for fresh assessments.

Based on the assessment, Dr Mandlebe said countries were required to apply a risk- based approach to allocating resources and implementing measures to prevent or mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing. ENDS