Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Nepal Averts being blacklisted in narrow.

    Nepal has narrowly averted being listed as one of the countries with fertile grounds for financial crime, as the plenary meeting of the global anti-money laundering body, Financial Action Task Force (FATF),
held in France and decided to let Nepal remain in the 'grey list' until June. Considering the fate of some of the booming economies in south east. Asia like Indonesia and Thailand which were given equal rating as Nepal by the FATF last october but were downgraded to 'black list' during meeting in France. Nepal has something to rejoice about but the country would not have been able to make such a narrow escape had it not expressed commitments at varioud levels to adopt stringent measures to control money laundering and acts of terror financing, according to Finance Secretary Krishna hari Banskota.
          The Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai at various forums has pleged to comply with all FATF measures if the country is given some more time to settle political differences. The finance minister has gone a step forward and sent a letter to the FATF citing Nepal's commitments to fight money laundering and terror financing, he told media person, the governer of the Central Bank and I (finance secretary) have expressed similar commitments with our foreign counterparts. During the meeting of last FATF an intergovernmental body that creates standards for fighting financial crimes had asked Nepal to comply with 49 recomendations to avert being labeled as a country that does not check illegal flow for terrorist activites.
         In this regard, Nepal was asked to criminalize acts of money laundering and terror financing before the FATF meeting in France from February-15-17. It was also recommended that the country develop mechanisms to identify and freeze terrorist assets and confiscate funds related to money laundering. Besides, enactment of law on mutual legal assistance was also prescribe so that international authorities invedtigating financial crime can legally exchange information with Nepal.

NEPAL WILL NOW HAVE TO FORMULATE OR AMEND LAWS FOR CONTROLLING FINANCIAL CRIME BY JUNE.

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