Watchdog removes Ghana from countries under increased monitoring for money laundering

Global money-laundering watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has removed Ghana from a list of countries under increased monitoring after the country strengthened the effectiveness of its Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime.

The FATF in a publication on Friday also said Ghana has addressed related technical deficiencies to meet the commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies it identified in October 2018.

"Ghana is therefore no longer subject to the FATF’s increased monitoring process. Ghana will continue to work with the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) to improve further its AML/CFT regime," the publication said.

The FATF identifies additional jurisdictions, on an ongoing basis, that have strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.

In October 2020, the FATF decided to recommence work, paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify new countries with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies and prioritise the review of listed countries with expired or expiring deadlines of action plan items.

The following countries had their progress reviewed by the FATF since February 2021: Albania, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Ghana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Burkina Faso and Senegal were given the opportunity and chose to defer reporting due to the pandemic.

"The FATF welcomes the progress made by these countries in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, despite the challenges posed by COVID-19," the publication said.