Minister of Finance and Public Enterprise Ipumbu Shiimi has tabled a Virtual Asset Bill in Parliament.
The bill comes after Namibia was evaluated by the Eastern and Southern African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) and Financial Action Task Force.
Namibia was found to have made substantial technical progress since its first evaluation in 2005, but there remains significant room for improvement on the overall level of effectiveness of the National Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation policy and legislative regime.
“The evaluation was aimed at assessing the country’s compliance with Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of terrorism and Proliferation United Nations conventions and mandatory UN Security Council Resolutions,” Shiimi said.
Shiimi further explained that the Cabinet approved the fast-tracking of the bill on 13 December 2022 in order to address the deficiencies that were highlighted in Namibia’s Mutual Evaluation Report.
“The Virtual Asset Bill is therefore one of the amendments and Bills that is being presented to this house today. The rest will follow throughout this week and next week,” said Shiimi.
The bill was drafted by the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Financial Intelligence Centre in order to ensure licensing and regulation of virtual asset service providers as well as to designate an authority that can regulate and supervise virtual asset service providers and related activities.
Shiimi further cites that the bill also aims to make sure that consumers are protected, prevent market abuse and prevent or mitigate the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing posed by virtual asset markets and provide for incidental matters
The proposed law will come into effect once it is published in the Government Gazette.
Namibia is making frantic efforts to fully comply with anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regulations to avoid it being greylisted.
Non-compliance could result in Namibia being grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force, which could have significant consequences for the country’s financial system. Reputational harm could reduce foreign direct investment, impact capital flows and increase due diligence costs.
