At least one Economist says money laundering is the biggest problem affecting South Africa’s financial standing globally.

Following the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary meeting in Singapore, National Treasury confirmed that the country is on track to exit the grey list.

The FATF, which determines the global standards for the combating of Money Laundering and terrorism financing placed South Africa on the grey list after finding it deficient.

Economist Stephen Mantsho says the country was grey-listed due to the detected laundering of money to terrorist-ridden countries financing wars.

“If you look into financial intelligence in South Africa, it is a bigger problem more particularly not only financial intelligence. The intelligence itself is weak for the counterpart in the world.

“Obviously the security part as well it shows that the security cluster is weak as well because it cannot provide protection for our county when it comes to financial, illicit money laundering around the world.”

POWER News