Republic of Mauritius- Mauritius’ Financial Services sector is reliable and in conformity to international standards, says Minister Sesungkur

The Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr Dharmendar Sesungkur, made this statement yesterday, during a press conference in Ebène.

He recalled that Mauritius as a member of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) underwent a mutual evaluation on the country’s level of compliance with the FATF forty recommendations and the level of effectiveness of its Anti-Money Laundering / Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) which was carried out by experts from ESAAMLG Secretariat in June 2017.

The Mutual Evaluation Report (MER), he said, contained a number of shortcomings regarding quality and consistency, including misinterpretation of the FATF Assessment Methodology and incomplete and inconsistent analysis of qualitative and quantitative data; and flagrant violations of the mutual evaluation procedures of ESAAMLG.

The Minister stressed that the Government of Mauritius subsequently introduced a number of amendments to the AML and CFT framework in its commitment to implementing the recommended actions to address the shortcomings identified in the MER and submitted an application for the Technical Compliance re-rating of a number of the FATF recommendations. The re-evaluation of the Mauritian jurisdiction by the two European regulators on harmful tax practices of Preferential Tax Regimes, he pointed out, clearly shows that Mauritius conform to the international requirements and regulations while giving a new credibility to the Mauritian jurisdiction.

The Minister reiterated the commitment of Mauritius to strengthen both its institutional and legal frameworks for combating money laundering and terrorism financing and reassured operators of the country’s strong and reliable financial services sector.   

Mauritius is a member of the ESAAMLG since 1999. As such, it endorsed the recommendations of the FATF and committed itself to implement these recommendations to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.