EU set to remove Ghana from money laundering and terrorist financing list

The European Union (EU) will soon remove Ghana from the list of money laundering and terrorist financing countries.

The Head of the EU delegation to Ghana, Diana Acconcia, disclosed this on PM Express Business Edition on Joy TV.

According to Mrs Acconcia, the Union was taking this action because Ghana had made a lot of progress in taking corrective measures to deal with the issues raised by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

She said that the Union was now waiting for the FATF report or review to take further action on the issue.

“It’s just a matter of time as that the Financial Action Task Force officials should be in town soon for its final review, physically or a possible virtual review. They are ready to remove Ghana from the list and I hope they can come and do that very soon, because the country has made a lot of progress,” she explained.

Background on EU’s action

The European Union on May 7, 2020 announced that it put 12 countries on the list of places with weak or deficiencies in Anti Money Laundering and Terrorism financing laws.

These include Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Panama and Zimbabwe.

In Ghana’s situation, the action or directive was supposed to start from October 2020.

According to the EU, these weakness identified in these countries possess a serious risk to their financial system hence the action, based on recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force, the Union went ahead to put Ghana on the list.

Ghana’s Finance Ministry, later in a statement, described the action as surprising and unfortunate, especially when government claimed that they had already steps to address all the issue, identified by the financial action task force. The action came with some scrutiny for Banks in the Ghana dealing with their counterparts in Europe.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison recently noted that the action impacted negatively on some banks.

Source: Ghanaian Times