(4 minutes read)
· The Mauritian government responded quickly to a charge by the European Union’s move to put the country on a money laundering ‘blacklist’ along with Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Panama and Zimbabwe
· Mauritian authorities maintain that this avoidable decision has cast a cloud over its reputation as a domicile for local fund managers looking to invest in projects on the continent
· Mauritius’s ministry of financial services and good governance said it was working closely with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to address its concerns and expressed the hope that Mauritius would be soon be removed from the blacklist, possibly by the end of this year or February 2021 by the latest
The Mauritian government responded quickly to a charge by the European Union’s move to put the country on a money laundering ‘blacklist’ along with Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Panama and Zimbabwe.
Mauritian authorities maintain that this avoidable decision has cast a cloud over its reputation as a domicile for local fund managers looking to invest in projects on the continent. The East African Island nation is emerging as a gateway to investments not only for the African region but also for Middle East and South Asian countries, particularly India.
Mauritius authorities pointed out that the EU did not take up its concerns on the fiscal framework and the present move would have far-reaching implications for the economy. Placing Mauritius on the blacklist will cause irreversible damage to the reputation undermining investor confidence, reduce cross-border investment flows and lead to a severe disruption of the banking system. Mauritius’s ministry of financial services and good governance said it was working closely with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to address its concerns and expressed the hope that Mauritius would be soon be removed from the blacklist, possibly by the end of this year or February 2021 by the latest.
The EU’s decision has affected the confidence of the fund managers. They are reported to be apprehensive about doing business in the island nation, according to a report put out by Jersey Finance in partnership with African Business magazine.
The matter arose in early May when the European Commission had come up with a new methodology for defining countries that had “strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regimes”. The blacklisting also looms over South African fund managers that have set up offshore operations on the island.
