Africa-Press – Eswatini. Following the recent Mutual Evaluation Report assessment by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), the government through the National Task Force (Council and Technical Committee) has developed an action plan to remediate the findings.
National Task Force Council Chairperson and Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) Governor, Phil Mnisi said the council led a motivated task force that had taken the challenge to remediate the findings of the mutual evaluation.
“As I have stated, the fight against the illicit financial flows from the financial crimes can be won with effective collaboration,” he said. Mnisi said the findings of the mutual evaluation report indicated that capacity-building was fundamental to implementing the action plan.
“The task force hosted a team of experts from ESAAMLG in May 2022 to train the technical staff of the task force members on the FATF Recommendations and implementing the FATF Methodology. Immediately thereafter, the council launched the Intergovernmental Agency Framework on asset forfeiture in July 2022,” he said.
Mnisi stated that the framework enhanced cooperation and gave a structured approach to implementing the functions of the task force.
“Since then, there have been two major cases of crimes involving illicit financial flows transcending jurisdiction that are currently ongoing where funds in the millions have been seized pending finalisation of the cases,” he said.
He added that the importance of measuring illicit financial flows and investigating them to repatriate the funds back to the country, the council commissioned an Illicit Financial Flows Committee in January 2023.
“The task force continues to implement the action plan with the following notable actions in progress such as the National Risk Assessment, which commenced in October 2022 and the first draft has already been issued. It already has a semblance of the findings,” he said.
Recommendations
He said the task force had also commenced reviewing legislation to address the recommendations rated as partially or non-compliant, the first draft of the Omnibus legislation was in place and currently, it was undergoing review following the first round of comments from stakeholders.
“Other progress has been made that informed by the National Risk Assessment is that the task force has drafted a Strategy and Action Plan with the assistance of the Southern African Development Community and the task force commissioned a Supervisors Forum where the supervisory authorities (Central Bank, FSRA and Eswatini Financial Intelligence Unit (EFIU)) discuss policies, risks and trends,” he said.
The governor said the first success of this forum was the requirement to report cash transactions above a threshold of E15 000 to the EFIU that was issued in September 2022.
“The data reported under this requirement will proactively help the country to understand the flows and use of cash as well as risks that may be emerging before financial institutions file suspicious transaction reports,” he said.
He further added that the council had commissioned research to understand virtual assets and associated risks to inform policy formulation.
Meanwhile, Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said the National Task Force (Council and Technical Committee) had come up with short and long-term objectives necessary to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism .
He mentioned that the ministry’s role was to ensure that policy-makers, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), law enforcement authorities, supervisors and other relevant authorities, at the policy- making and operational levels, had effective mechanisms in place which enable them to cooperate, and, where appropriate, coordinate domestically with each other concerning the development and implementation of policies and activities to combat money laundering.
“Through the task force, the aforementioned is catered for and the task force is also responsible for reporting to ESAAMLG and also come up with a National AML/CFT Strategic Plan to which its mandate is executed,” he said.
He mentioned that part of the short-term objectives were to conduct and adopt a National Risk Assessment which was still ongoing and review the Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention) Act and relevant laws and develop frameworks, such as virtual assets, non profit organisations, ultimate beneficial ownership frameworks. These were areas proposed by the assessors and it is also still ongoing.
“The short-term objectives also involve establishing an effective AML/CFT regulatory and supervisory regime for all accountable institutions, enhancing communication and sharing of information with all stakeholders,” he said.
The minister stated that the long term objectives included complying fully with evolving international and regional standards on AML/CFT, collaborating with regional and international states in combating ML/TF, promoting consultative processes between the government and other stakeholders and to make Eswatini an attractive investment destination due to low levels of such crimes.
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