"The inclusion of Angola on the Financial Action Group (FATF) gray list is worrying, but the financial system was already operating under these constraints due to the loss of bank correspondence," said the resident representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Angola.
Speaking to Lusa on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, which end on Saturday in Washington, Victor Duarte Lledo explained that the placement of Angola on the FATF's reinforced monitoring list, known as the gray list, has several impacts, which grow as the country stays in this situation longer.
"The various empirical studies we have done in several countries that have gone through this show that the short-term effect is that cross-border transactions can take a little longer due to due diligence, and there may be a reduction in the flow of capital," said Victor Lledo, adding that "the main impact comes in the long term, and tends to get stronger the longer the country stays on the gray list".
In reacting to the FATF's decision, Victor Duarte Lledo highlighted that "banks have made great progress in regaining banking correspondence" and added that with "commitment at the highest level, coordination and training, the Fund supported and remains available to help Angola to get off the gray list as quickly as possible."
The FATF, an organization that fights money laundering, announced on Friday that it had included Angola in the "grey list", as the list of countries that receive reinforced monitoring by the entity is known.
The announcement was made by the president of FATF, Elisa de Anda Madrazo, at the end of a plenary meeting in which she highlighted that "the process of inclusion in the [grey] list is not a punitive measure".
Reacting to the decision, the Ministry of Finance stated that "after discussion of the post-Observation Period Progress Report, the FATF's specialist body for Africa concluded that, of the 87 recommended actions, Angola managed to resolve a total of 70 deficiencies, 17 remain unresolved".
In the statement, the government reiterated the "high-level commitment" to strengthen the effectiveness of preventing and combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and assured that it "will make the necessary efforts for timely and effective compliance of the recommended action plan".
