SA gets reprieve to comply with Fica
The Financial Action Task Force grants SA a three-month extension to enact the finance intelligence bill
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), has given SA three months’ grace to enact the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment (Fica) bill before it is declared noncompliant with antimoney-laundering and anti-terrorist financing standards, which would place the country in the same category as North Korea and Iran. The FATF plenary, which meets three times a year, had last week deferred a decision to make a public statement on SA’s failure to cure deficiencies through the bill until June, the Treasury said on Monday. "It will be a challenge to meet such a short deadline, since FATF expects both the bill to be enacted and in effect by then," said Ismail Momoniat, a deputy director-general in the Treasury. "But I believe that we can make significant progress by the next FATF meeting." Momoniat said Parliament’s speedy actions — and its expected vote on amendments to the bill on Tuesday — would make progress possible. "We will then have to gazette the relevant regulations, which can only...
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