(3 minutes read)
- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its plenary held on 21 October 2021 in Paris removed Botswana from its grey list of jurisdictions
- This intergovernmental body is concerned with money laundering, terrorism financing and other illicit money flows and names countries involved in such illegal activities
- The body cited improvements in Botswana’s handling of its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) regimes
- It was grey-listed in October 2018.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its plenary held on 21October 2021 in Paris removed Botswana from its grey list of jurisdictions. This intergovernmental body is concerned with money laundering, terrorism financing and other illicit money flows and names countries involved in such illegal activities. The body cited improvements in Botswana’s handling of its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) regimes. It was grey-listed in October 2018.
Botswana worked closely with the FATF to strengthen its AML and CTF regimes. It addressed technical deficiencies identified by the intergovernmental organisation-FATF. It brought regulations in line with world standards by the establishment of a new legal framework.
The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), which implements FATF recommendations in the region, completed its assessment of Botswana’s legal systems and subsequently the FATF removed the country from its grey list.
This development will come as a relief to Botswana since the grey-listing by the FATF meant automatic inclusion in the European Union’s and the UK’s lists of high-risk countries. The listing had implications for the country’s foreign investment environment, impacting cross-border transactions.
The removal from the grey list also decreases the chance of future sanctions from other multilateral organisations. FATF grey-listing can be the first step in a series of increasingly stricter sanctions from the World Bank, the IMF and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Stephen Williams • 6 min. read
This would also give the government of Botswana more room for manoeuvre in its effort to diversify the economy, particularly wooing western countries to its high deposit of rare earth used for the manufacture of electric cars.
