(Business in Cameroon) – Cameroon got grey-listed last June 23 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the watchdog of global money laundering and terrorist financing. In its latest update, the inter-governmental body added Cameroon, along with Croatia and Vietnam to the list of countries to be monitored closely when it comes to these two crimes.
The grey list gathers countries that show deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering and terrorist financing but are working actively with the FATF to close the gap. Cameroon’s integration into this group took place against the backdrop of the separatist war raging in the country’s two Anglophone regions. The militias present in these regions are supported by a large majority of the diaspora, some of whose members were recently convicted in the USA for providing financial support to the separatists.
In an op-ed published on December 21, 2022, in Cameroon Tribune, Désiré Geoffroy Mbock, former Permanent Secretary of the Task Force on Money Laundering in Central Africa (Gabac), predicted that Cameroon would be on the Fatf’s “grey” list in 2023. At the time, Mr. Mbock pointed out that during its last peer review, Cameroon had received 13 “partially compliant” (PC) ratings for money laundering and eight “non-compliant” (NC) ratings for terrorist financing.
Blacklist
Faft identified Cameroon as one of the countries “particularly exposed to money laundering risks linked to the integration into the financial system of proceeds from corruption, embezzlement of public funds, customs and tax fraud, poaching, trafficking in wildlife and protected forest species”.
According to Désiré Geoffroy Mbock, now that the country is on the grey list, it has been placed under closer surveillance by the FATF’s International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG), which, following its preliminary assessment, will submit Cameroon to an action plan. If no satisfactory progress is observed, the country’s political authorities will be required to make a public, written commitment at the highest governmental level, to take all necessary steps to correct the shortcomings identified throughout the evaluation process, within one year.
Failure to comply with this commitment exposes the country to being considered a high-risk country, and therefore to being placed on the blacklist and subject to a public declaration. This means that in the event of a Gabac member or associate member state being publicly declared by the FATF, foreign banks could suspend all transactions with their correspondents in the countries concerned, Désiré Geoffroy Mbock explained.
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