Papua New Guinea has been removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylist and is recognised internationally for progress in anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing.
FATF is a multidisciplinary body made up of 37 member countries globally, and operates as a peer review mechanism holding Governments to account for their commitment to fighting international crime and improving financial stability.
PNG is part of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering that is an associated member of FATF.
In February 2014, PNG was placed on the international monitoring list of the FATF and assessed on the FATF standards. PNG was found as not being compliant and was greylisted by FATF.
Bank of PNG acting director for Financial Analyses Supervision Unit, Benny Popoatai said that the benefit of being taken off the greylist is that no one will feel that it is unsafe to do business with PNG.
“When you are greylisted, it is difficult when trying to do business with people from outside of PNG.
“In the international financial system, many banks look out for this and investors keep an eye out for this so we worked really hard to get ourselves off the greylist,” Popoatai said.
PNG was criticised for failure to establish and implement adequate measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
Failure to take action following the grey listing would have meant that PNG would be in a danger of being further downgraded to being blacklisted.
Since then, a committee for anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) was formed to drive the tasks required to be removed from the greylist.
These task involved institutional reforms, the passage of two new laws and the revision of three other laws.
The two new laws that were passed were the United Nations Financial Sanctions and the AML/CTF law.
The other laws that were revised to ensure that we were of the greylist were the Proceeds of Crime Act, Mutual Legal Assistance Act and the amendments to the Criminal Code.
Department of Justice and Attorney General (DJAG) assistant deputy secretary legal and policy, Roselyn Gwaibo said that despite being removed from the greylist, we remain under close scrutiny from international and domestic peers to ensure that AML/CTF foundations are in place.
“We urge all involved in the AML/CTF reform to continue their work to strengthen the integrity of our country’s economy from profit driven crime and terrorism,” she said.