Agencies compliant, says dept

ALL State and private agencies have complied with the 40 recommendations set by the Asia and Pacific Anti-Money Laundering Group and are ready for the second mutual evaluation after eight years, says an official.
Department of Justice and Attorney-General secretary Dr Eric Kwa said that a national coordinating committee, co-chaired by Bank of Papua New Guinea and the Office of Justice and Attorney-General, was monitoring what the agencies within the country have been doing over the last 10 years and will provide a report to the APG.
Kwa said that those were basically the compliance agencies who deal with money.
“We have had regular meetings over the years in preparation for this particular event that started on Monday,” he said.
“It is not something that just popped up last night or a couple of days ago.
“We have been here and we’ve been functioning as a government for the last seven years.
“From the last evaluation back in 2015, we have done all the right things and we are familiar with the kinds of questions that our international evaluators will be asking.
“We know what kind of answers that we need to give and so we’re very much prepared in terms of us dealing with the mutual evaluation team that are here in our country.
“It’s not only the developing countries that get assessed.
“Even the developed countries in the world were also being assessed.
“We have almost 50 countries in this group and basically the whole idea is to ensure that our financial systems are robust that it gives credibility to the Bank of PNG and to the commercial banks that operate, to ensure that our money is safe to be traded on the international market.”
The Prime Minister’s Office takes a lead on one of the key aspects of anti-money laundering, which are sanctions.
The Government’s chief secretary is in charge of sanctions which involve monitoring where they may be agencies, groups, or individuals, that are listed on the list of anti-money laundering or counter terrorist financing in other countries.