Money schemes to be addressed

Business

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
The Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit will work with police to address money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, director Benny Popoitai says.
Popoitai said the unit was formed as a requirement of the financial action taskforce in Paris. It had investigated and identified gaps in the banking policies which caused Papua New Guinea to be in the “grey list”.
“PNG was grey-listed because the country’s policies on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing did not comply with the requirements of the international action taskforce. And with the help of its partners in the region and stakeholders, the country managed to get out of that list on June 15, 2015,” he said.
He told The National that as a result, they amended the five legislations. They are the Anti-money Laundering and Counter-terrorism Financing Act, Criminal Code (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Act 2015, Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Amendment) Act 2015, Proceeds of Crimes (Amendment) Act 2015, and United Nations Financial Sanction Act, 2015. They came into effect on February 16.
“These laws were designed to meet the financial action  taskforce standard and for the country to meet its international obligations on combating money laundering and terrorist financing,” he said.
Popoitai said they were building a robust regime to combat the money laundering issue, meet the requirements of the national financial action taskforce unit and prevent the country from getting back onto the grey list.