‘Tremendous progress has been made to remove SA from grey list’

President Cyril Ramaphosa says government is working with National Treasury to remove South Africa from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. The FATF took a decision to include South Africa on its grey list in February last year.

The FATF’s 2021 mutual evaluation report highlighted several deficiencies in the country’s anti-money laundering systems and the effectiveness of counter-terrorist financing systems.

The report included 67 recommendations and South Africa was given one year to show progress in adhering to them or face the risk of staying on the list.

“We were discussing it in a Cabinet committee and tremendous progress has been made and will continue to be made to remove SA from this grey listing programme. And what we also heard is that we’re not the only country that is having this challenge. In mighty countries like the US for instance, on this particular issue, they are way behind us. We have some nine issues left and they have like 38,” says Ramaphosa.