It is a race against time, acknowledges Ludmila Dange, executive director of the Capital Market Commission (CMC), a regulatory body that this Thursday presented in Luanda the general lines of the FATF preliminary assessment report, concluded last month June, and Angola's plan of action to implement the evaluators' recommendations.
Angola, currently in the evaluation phase, has until June of next year to avoid joining the FATF's so-called "grey list" which includes countries considered non-cooperative in terms of combating money laundering and terrorist financing, as happened in 2010 .
"One of the great risks, which ends up having an impact on the entire economy, is the lack of access to foreign exchange. We are an extremely importing economy, so that cutting off access to foreign exchange creates constraints even in terms of what we eat", explained the person in charge from CMC.
Other constraints relate to access to correspondent banks, which prevent certain financial transactions, also undermining the country's credibility.
"We have seen an effort by the executive to attract foreign investment and joining this gray list would make the process even more challenging", underlined Ludmila Dange.
Of the 40 FATF recommendations, Angola is committed to "having the best possible assessment", but there are defined priorities.
"We have to be strategic, we have a year and what is our action strategy and what is the support we have received from institutions that have already been in a situation similar to ours, such as, for example, the Mauritius Islands, which we have to do is attack the recommendations that are fundamental", said the administrator of the CMC.
To this end, the executive will give priority in its national action plan to six recommendations in the field of money laundering and two in the field of financing terrorism, in a "joint work" that ranges from the financial sector to law enforcement bodies.
"Although the financial sector is doing well, if any other sector is not in conditions, we will go to the gray list and that is what we want to avoid", continued the official.
Priorities include enhanced customer due diligence, crimes associated with money laundering and terrorist financing, recording information and reporting suspicious transactions and specific sanctions linked to terrorist financing, misuse of non-profit organizations and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
With regard to the financing of terrorism, one of the areas in which most weaknesses were identified in Angola, there are also priority recommendations, said Ludmila Dange, stressing that one of the aspects that must be improved is regulation, along with a better understanding of this matter.
"It is important to train our teams, in the sense that they have better knowledge and greater understanding about how to identify the sources of terrorist financing and how to deal with these issues", she told journalists.
As regulator of the financial system, the CMC is part of the evaluation system and has "greater responsibility with regard to the entities subject to its supervision", and is also adopting actions to adapt to the recommendations.
Ludmila Dange stressed that the recommendations also have an impact on the legislation as the Law for the Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Law 5/20) is in the process of being adapted.
FATF is an entity that develops policies to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, seeking to implement legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.
To fulfill its objectives, FATF published 40 recommendations and periodically evaluates member countries to verify the implementation of the suggested measures.
