South Africa is unlikely to be admitted this week to an international body charged with supervising the fight against money laundering, a German government source said on Tuesday.
South Africa’s membership of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ”will be postponed to a later date” or perhaps accepted ”under certain conditions”, the source said.
The Paris-based FATF is due to meet in Berlin on Wednesday to adopt a new series of recommendations on combatting money laundering and to discuss admitting South Africa and Russia.
The source said no decision had been taken yet, but ”everything seems to indicate that South Africa, compared to Russia, does not fulfil the criteria yet.”
At the end of April, a FATF delegation wound up a week-long visit to Russia and said it would recommend giving Moscow full membership.
Russia has observer status at the FATF, created in 1990 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to fight dirty money and since September 11, 2001 to choke the flow of funds to terror groups.
Until last year, Moscow featured on a blacklist of countries considered too lax in combatting financial crime.
The task force insisted Russian authorities take stronger measures to eliminate financial crime after several high-profile cases revealed the extent to which the financial and banking system helped illegal cash flows.
FATF is an independent body of officials and experts from 29 countries, the European Union’s executive commission and the Gulf Cooperation Council. – Sapa