General News of Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2019-02-19
The Ministry of Finance says it is disappointed over the European Commission’s decision to add Ghana to a list of 23 countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks.
“We consider the methodology used by the EC flawed, as there were no communications with Ghana concerning shortcomings that needed to be improved. Consequently, Ghana was not given the opportunity to respond or time to implement corrective measures, which is the norm,” the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
“The European Commission’s blacklist of Ghana, therefore, does not reflect the current status of Ghana’s AML/CFT regime,” it added.
Ghana and her West African neighbour Nigeria were added to an already existing blacklist of 16 countries announced by the EC in a press release on February 13.
The listing, however, does not entail any type of sanctions, restrictions on trade relations or impediment to development aid; but requires banks and obliged entities to apply enhanced vigilance measures on transactions involving these countries.
Read the full statement below: