The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has commended Namibia for its swift and proactive measures to address anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing gaps.
The commendation follows Namibia’s voluntary progress report, presented during the recent FATF plenary meeting held from 23 to 25 October 2024 in Paris, France.
The report highlighted the country’s advancement on nine of the thirteen recommended actions set out in its FATF Action Plan.
“The Financial Action Task Force has successfully noted Namibia’s progress in partially addressing nine of the 13 recommended actions in a voluntary progress report that the country presented at the just-ended plenary meeting held from 23-25 October in Paris, France,” said the Director of the Financial Intelligence Centre, Brian Eiseb.
He further explained that Namibia voluntarily chose to update FATF on its progress, even though no mandatory reporting was required this cycle.
FATF noted that Namibia has made significant initial strides in areas such as anti-money laundering risk-based supervision, the filing of beneficial ownership information, and efforts to enhance law enforcement’s capability to investigate complex financial crimes.
FATF acknowledged these improvements as a promising start toward strengthening Namibia’s financial crime framework.
Despite these achievements, Eiseb also pointed out that the country still faces challenges in bolstering its ability to prevent, detect and investigate terrorism-related and other complex financial crimes.
He said that the FATF encouraged Namibia to persist with its robust efforts to address these strategic deficiencies and meet the remaining Action Items.
“Namibia, however, must improve amongst others its capacity to prevent, identify and investigate terrorism-related and other complex financial crimes,” Eiseb said.
He also said that since being added to the FATF grey list in February 2024, Namibia has committed to a timeline that includes compulsory reporting cycles every six months, starting in November 2024 and continuing through May 2026.
Continued progress could allow Namibia to exit the grey list ahead of schedule if it demonstrates effective implementation of its anti-money laundering regime.
“The compulsory reporting ends in May 2026 and is divided into reporting cycles of six months, which implies that Namibia will have to demonstrate that it has largely addressed the remaining 13 action items as set out in the timelines of the Action Plan,” he said.
