The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the world’s leading anti-money laundering organisation, recently greylisted South Africa citing deficiencies in the country’s ability to prevent the flow of dirty money in its systems. The FATF greylisted Botswana between 2018 and 2021, only lifting the label after government and Parliament fast-tracked more than a dozen new laws and amendments, to plug the identified weaknesses.
For Botswana, the greylisting prompted an automatic blacklisting by the European Union and proved a disincentive for investment, while also increasing the due diligence on payments to and from the country, making these take far longer than should have.
