Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s government plans to establish an Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASFPM), in line with recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to remove the country from the “grey list”.
The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday in Maputo, where the draft law creating the ASFPM was considered and approved, to be submitted to parliament, according to a statement released by that body after the meeting.
The draft law involves “abolishing” the Mozambique Insurance Supervisory Institute. It will “respond” to one of the measures in the Economic Acceleration Package, as well as adopt measures to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing by insurance operators and pension fund managers.
“Contributing to transparency in its management, complying with the 40 recommendations issued by the FATF, to help remove the country from the grey list,” the cabinet statement also said.
The decision will also make it possible to “monitor the indicator on the alignment of the regulatory framework for insurance and pension funds” with the “principles” of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) and the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors (IOPS), according to the government.
At the same session, the cabinet also approved the draft Legislative Authorisation Law for the government to approve the Legal Regime for Insurance, a revision that will “introduce legislative reforms in the insurance sector appropriate to the current dynamics,” as well as “the principles and good practices of approach, governance and management of insurance issued by international organisations.”
Among other measures, this revision includes the “establishment of the figure of the customer ombudsman” to “streamline the resolution of disputes in insurance contracts”, as well as “redefining rules for risk distribution in reinsurance operations”, broadening the range of offences committed in the exercise of the activity, “including the strengthening of the respective sanctions”, and defining general rules of conduct for the market, “introducing general principles for the settlement of insurance and reinsurance companies”.
The Mozambican authorities announced on 15 May that they had complied with all the indicators that led to their inclusion on the FATF’s “grey list” of financial jurisdictions on 22 October 2022, namely for failing to eliminate deficiencies in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
“We are waiting for the procedures to be completed so that we can be removed from the grey list and return to the normal situation in which we have always lived, in which our financial institutions, our reputation, the perception of foreign investors towards the country, everything returns (…) in which we are not seen as money launderers,” said Luís Abel Cezerilo, national coordinator for Mozambique’s removal from the grey list, at a press conference. Luís Abel Cezerilo, at a press conference.
The Mozambican authorities had previously stated that Mozambique’s removal from the grey list was pending the last of the 26 actions required, the submission to the FATF of the list of Non-Profit Organisations that move “large sums of money”, including data on the use of the funds, with a particular focus on Cabo Delgado and the terrorist groups operating in the province since 2017.
He said that the negative image the country had in international financial institutions had been reversed, adding that all indicators had been met and that only “protocol procedures” remained before the announcement of its removal from the list, which could be made by the FATF in September at a meeting in Mozambique to assess the country and others in the same situation.
“The government has complied, the FATF is a serious institution and therefore will not give us any other reason not to leave the grey list,” Cezerilo said.
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