The Mozambican government reaffirms its commitment to preventing and combating money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
This commitment is expressed in a statement released by Mozambique’s Finance Ministry late on Friday.
The government notes that Mozambique has been placed in the list of enhanced surveillance jurisdictions, also referred “grey list” despite ongoing efforts to strengthen its infrastructure to combat money laundering and terrorist financing crimes, close cooperation with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its multilateral partners.
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It acknowledge that the placement in the list is intended to ensure the expeditious elimination of strategic deficiencies identified in its system to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the 2019 Mutual Evaluation of the country, whose Report was published June 2021 by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG).
“The Government and all relevant bodies to this process are fully committed to efforts to strengthen the integrity of both the domestic and international financial system and will continue to work hard, in collaboration with the FATF, to implement the measures recommended by the FATF in the identified areas for improvement”, reads the document.
It further explains that, through the Financial Intelligence Office (GIFiM), it has been working closely with the FATF, and also with the countries of Eastern and Southern Africa; as well as with financial and technical partners including France, the United States of America, the IMF, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the UNODC and the Basel Institute, demonstrating the collaboration of the international community.
In this context it has taken a series of measures namely approval by the Council of Ministers of the strategy against money laundering and financing of terrorism, the approval of the Revision of the Money Laundering Law by the Parliament, the Law on the Prevention, Repression and Combating of Terrorism and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, among others.
“The State is fully committed to these efforts and remains highly focused on implementing the recommended additional measures required to further improve transparency and strengthen the stability of the country’s financial system”, says the government
For its part the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) to strengthen the effectiveness of its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) acknowledge that Mozambique has made a high-level political commitment to work with the relevant bodies
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Since the adoption of its mutual evaluation report MER in April 2021, Mozambique has made progress on some recommended actions to improve its system including by finalising its National Risk Assessment (NRA) and strengthening its asset confiscation efforts.
Mozambique will work to implement its FATF action plan by ensuring cooperation and coordination amongst relevant authorities to implement risk-based AML/CFT strategies and policies; conduct training for all LEAs on mutual legal assistance to enhance the gathering of evidence or seizure/confiscation of proceeds of crime; providing adequate financial and human resources to supervisors, developing and implementing a risk-based supervision plan among others.
