NA gives green light to Anti-Money Laundering Bill
28 Nov 2022
The national assembly has given the green light to the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Bill and sent it to the national council of provinces for concurrence.
The bill was tabled in parliament in August 2022.
National treasury published the bill’s explanatory summary in Government Gazette 46744 earlier the same month.
Cabinet approved the bill in August for tabling in parliament.
According to the cabinet statement, the amendments respond to deficiencies identified during the peer review of the country conducted by the Financial Action Task Force.
“The mutual evaluation report made 40 recommendations that would assist in getting South Africa to be aligned with international measures of combating money laundering and financing of terrorism.”
South Africa was found to be lacking in 20 areas and the bill addresses about 14 of the areas identified.
The bill seeks to amend a raft of acts including the Trust Property Control Act; Nonprofit Organisations Act; Financial Intelligence Centre Act; and Companies Act.
Proposed amendments to the Trust Property Control Act of 1988 include imposing certain requirements on trustees; specifying matters that would disqualify a person from being appointed or continuing to act as a trustee; providing for the removal of a trustee who becomes disqualified to continue to act as a trustee; specifying information that must be kept by trustees in relation to beneficial owners in relation to trusts; requiring the Master to maintain a register containing information relating to beneficial ownership of trusts, and providing for access to information regarding beneficial ownership.
Proposed amendments to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act of 2001 include amending the functions of the Centre to include the provision of forensic information; empowering the Centre to request information held by other organs of state; providing for additional and ongoing due diligence measures, and by amending the process followed when there are doubts about the veracity of information; aligning certain provisions and Schedules 3A and 3B to appropriately refer to domestic and foreign “politically exposed persons”, as distinct from “politically influential persons”, who will be dealt with in a new Schedule 3C; amending certain provisions relating to resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations; amending the powers of access by authorised representatives to records of accountable institutions; enabling the Centre to renew a direction not to proceed with a transaction; providing for the safeguarding of information; amending the provisions relating to the disclosure of information to the Centre and access to information by the Centre; empowering the Minister to prescribe appropriate requirements relating to the access to personal information to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place as required by section 6(1)(c) of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013; amending certain provisions relating to the risk management and compliance programme; amending the offences provisions to empower the imposition of an administrative sanctions; amending the provision relating to the amendment by the Minister of Schedule 2; and amending Schedules 2, 3A and 3B, and by inserting a new Schedule 3C.
Proposed amendments to the Companies Act of 2008 include inserting a definition of ‘‘beneficial owner’’; providing for a comprehensive mechanism through which the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission can keep accurate and updated beneficial ownership information; requiring a company to keep a record of a natural person who owns or controls the company in terms of the definition of ‘‘beneficial owner’’, and by providing for specified timelines within which the company must record any changes in this information; requiring a company to file a record of any natural person who owns or controls the company in terms of the definition of ‘‘beneficial owner’’, with the Commission; and specifying that persons who are convicted of offences relating to money laundering, terrorist financing, or proliferation financing activities are prohibited from registering as company directors.
The standing committee on finance adopted the bill with amendments.
The select committee on finance will process the bill.
See also:
- Co-operation, collaboration and corporate governance with Sabinet’s Financial Regulatory Instruments
- The high cost of FICA non-compliance
- Financial sector regulatory sandboxes: Let’s go to the beach
- The introduction of a new financial services regulatory model
