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Ghana has regretted the decision by the European Commission (EC) to add her to the list of countries with strategic deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.

It said: “Ghana’s commitment to strengthening its evolving AML/CFT framework was acknowledged by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard-setting body in global AML/CFT.”

A statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Finance and copied to Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said Ghana considered the methodology used by the EC flawed, as there were no communications with Ghana concerning shortcomings that needed to be improved.

“Consequently, Ghana was not given the opportunity to respond or time to implement corrective measures, which is the norm. We, therefore, consider the decision to be premature and call for its reversal. Our request is buttressed by the following facts.”

That, the FATF and its Regional Styled Bodies including; the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) periodically assess the AML/CFT regime of member States by conducting Mutual Evaluation Exercises.

The statement said Ghana successfully went through the Second Round of AML/CFT Mutual Evaluation and became the first country in the West African sub-region to have surrendered to the Second Round of the Mutual Evaluation process, the report of which was adopted by the GIABA Ministerial Committee (GMC) at its meeting in May 2017.

“Following the discussion of Ghana’s Mutual Evaluation Report by FATF during their plenary meetings in October 2018, FATF identified some strategic deficiencies in the country’s AML/CFT framework and has worked with Ghana to draw up an Action Plan to address same. Indeed, Ghana is currently working with FATF to effectively implement the Action Plan,” it said.

The statement said Ghana met the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of FATF twice.

“On January 17, 2019, Ghana had a second face-to-face meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with the ICRG to discuss the progress of implementation of the Action Plan and received positive feedback from the ICRG.

“FaTF, in discussing the country’s progress in addressing the identified strategic deficiencies, also recognised Ghana’s high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and GIABA to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime,” it said.

The statement said the EC’s blacklist of Ghana, therefore, did not reflect the current status of Ghana’s AML/CFT regime.
“This is unfortunate, and Ghanaian authorities are willing and ready to engage the Commission about the true status of the country’s AML/CFT regime and efforts at strengthening it, and removing Ghana from their list of countries with strategic deficiencies in their AML/CFT framework.”