In 2019, members of the international financial crimes watchdog body visited SA to check its progress on recommendations made previously for the country to deal with loopholes in its capacity to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Not much was done by the SA government and the private sector.
In 2021, another report came – with more pointed findings from the financial action task force. Still, there was little movement from authorities and industry.
In February last year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisted SA, effectively placing it on a public list of countries that are being greatly monitored for having inherently serious weaknesses in its ability to combat money laundering and countering terror financing.
Simply put, for a country with such a high volume of crimes such as corruption, fraud, tax evasion and the illicit trafficking of drugs and weapons, our systems were not adequately positioned to confront these, making us even more vulnerable to being exploited for financial gain by terror organisations.
Not only is this an economic risk, including potentially diminishing our potential to attract investments; it also has a devastating impact on our communities' broader domestic security.
Last week, the FATF announced that SA was making progress having addressed 16 of the 22 action points agreed upon.
We have improved our monitoring of entities of individuals whose activities are outside the traditional financing sector and who are susceptible to money laundering or terror financing.
SA was found to have enhanced its ability to confiscate proceeds of crime and authorities have been found to have increased their understanding of terror financing and the state's capability to implement targeted sanctions.
This is good news.
It is an encouraging sign of the commitment made by the government last year to respond adequately to these risks.
However, our country is certainly not out of the woods yet.
There are at least six other areas of concern identified by the FATF which are yet to be achieved.
These include the sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and complex illicit flows. SA may not make meaningful strides to demonstrate this by the next assessment cycle in February.
But we must continue to build resilient and proactive systems to ensure we not only comply with international standards but to protect our security from ever-increasing risks of illicit crimes.
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