Seychelles submits progress report on strengthening of measures to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing to ESAAMLG
July 10, 2019
Seychelles has presented its report on progress made to improve and implement Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing measures, to the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG).
The progress report, submitted on Friday July 5, 2019, together with an action plan and implementation timelines, will guide efforts to address deficiencies highlighted in the country’s second Mutual Evaluation Report (MER), adopted in September 2018.
This was confirmed during the National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Committee meeting held on Tuesday July 9, 2019. Members of the Committee worked on finalising the document over the past months.
The Secretary of State for Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Mr. Patrick Payet, who chairs the Committee emphasised on the need for all law enforcement agencies, as well as the regulatory and supervisory authorities to work towards achieving the actions that have been agreed upon.
Work being done to review and amend several laws and regulations is among ongoing efforts to strengthen the country’s AML/CFT framework that has been included in the progress report. This also consists of a new AML law, being drafted by the Attorney General’s office, following initial work done by an international consultant, with input received from the relevant institutions and agencies. The new AML law will incorporate compliant provisions in the current AML Act and Regulations, alongside new provisions. There will be a series of engagement, targeting industry practitioners in the various sectors as well as other stakeholders, before the draft bill is submitted to Cabinet and subsequently to parliament.
The need to have an implementation action plan with the clear timelines was, in fact, one of the main recommendations for Seychelles that came out of the 37th ESAAMLG Task Force of Senior Officials meeting held in Arusha, Tanzania, in April this year. This is also expected to direct the National AML/CFT Committee’s focus on the identified milestones that need to be achieved to address the effectiveness and technical compliance deficiencies highlighted in the MER, before requesting a re-rating of the recommendations graded as partially compliant and non-compliant to globally accepted standards for AML/CFT. Members of the National AML/CFT Committee have agreed that Seychelles will request a re-rating in September 2020. Seychelles will have to address its technical compliance deficiencies within three years from September 2018 and two years after that to show its effectiveness.
It is to be noted that Seychelles will be required to defend its second follow-up report and provide further updates to the review panel at the 38th ESAAMLG Senior Task Force Meeting and 19th Council of Ministers Meeting to be held in the Kingdom of Eswatini in September 2019. Seychelles has been placed on ‘enhanced follow up process’ and has to report on its progress bi-annually at each Task Force Plenary Meeting.
During Tuesday’s meeting, members of the National AML/CFT Committee discussed other ongoing work, including the recruitment process of a resident advisor, which is being finalised. The resident advisor will be tasked with assisting all law enforcement agencies as they move forward to undertake reforms to address issues and weaknesses highlighted in the MER, as well as to build capacity.
As part of efforts to engage with stakeholders to provide an overview of ongoing reforms of the National Anti-Money Laundering framework, members of the National AML/CFT Committee will be meeting with members of the National Assembly on Thursday July 18, 2019, to start the consultation process on the AML/CFT legislations that will be reviewed. There will be similar consultation and engagement with other stakeholders at a later stage.