Ken Ofori-Atta
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has expressed reservations about the decision by the European Union to blacklist Ghana over reported non-compliance of money laundering rules.
He made these remarks when he met the European Union Ambassador to Ghana to sign an agreement for some 87 million Euros budgetary support labelled as a “Coronavirus response”. He took the opportunity to ‘protest’ against the decision, saying it is like “a sledgehammer thrown at us.”
“As you know, the EU put us on the grey end of the blacklist because of our discussions with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). That’s quite debilitating and so we are hopeful to be off the list in December and that the EU will also expeditiously take us out of that,” he said.
“It sometimes looked quite incongruent. When we see issues such as HSBC Bank right at your door and then we feel like a sledgehammer is being thrown at us for an event that has not occurred but in preparedness, we are moving aggressively to get that and we’ll seek your support when we get off the FAFT list that the EU reciprocates quickly,” he added.
Ghana was placed on a list of countries under the watch of the EU for certain money-laundering activities due to an observation by the FAFT, the Inter-government organization recognized by the World Bank and IMF for instituting policies aimed at combating money-laundering and terrorism.
The EU on May 7, 2020 proposed to the European Parliament to include Ghana among 11 other countries on the money-laundering blacklisted countries, thus putting financial transactions under greater scrutiny.
The 12 countries which were subsequently banned effective this October are Ghana, Botswana, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Cambodia, Mongolia and Myanmar.
But, in a statement, Ghana’s Ministry of Finance responded that the EU’s move does not reflect exactly the current status of Ghana’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) (AML/CFT) regimes.
“This is unfortunate and the Government of Ghana is always ready to engage with the EC (European Commission) about the true status of the country’s AML/CFT regime and efforts being made to strengthen same,” the statement read.