EFF statement on the decision by the Financial Action Task Force to Grey List SA
24 February 2023
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted the decision by the Financial Action Task Force, to grey list South Africa. The Financial Action Task Force is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, which sets international standards to regulate illegal crimes that relate to money laundering and terrorism.
The decision to grey list South Africa effectively means that our country has weak measures to combat illicit financial flows and the financing of terrorist activity. As a result, South Africa will be subject to increased monitoring and regulatory scrutiny when conducting international transactions, meaning that on top of our existing unmanageable foreign debt, we will be charged more for the chronic borrowing of money from foreign institutions, that the leadership of this country suffers from.
The grey listing of South Africa should come as no surprise, as the EFF has since its inception highlighted the high rate of illicit financial flows, tax evasion and base erosion that characterises the South African economy.
It was the EFF that exposed the billions lost by our economy due to profit shifting, base erosion and tax avoidance by white corporate South Africa, and we went as far as proposing the Tax Avoidance Bill in Parliament. The Bill proposed by the EFF sought to;
1. Improve the legal tools SARS has available, by legally compelling SARS to intervene against aggressive tax avoidance schemes.
2. Legislate clear definitions and eliminate all legal loop holes and grey areas, as to what constitutes tax avoidance, and tax avoidance schemes.
3. Introduce strong penalty regimes for companies that participate in aggressive tax avoidance schemes.
If this government had followed the logical and superior interventions of the EFF, the eventuality of grey listing could have been avoided.
It must however not shock the people of South Africa that South Africa has been identified as a high-risk area for illicit financial flows, because the President of South Africa himself, Cyril Ramaphosa stands accused of money laundering and tax evasion, with regards to the millions of undeclared foreign currency which were kept at Phala Phala Farm.
Cyril Ramaphosa forms part of the reasons why South Africa has been grey listed, through his dodgy dealings as the sole Director of Ntaba Nyoni Estates PTY Ltd, the company that owns Phala Phala farm.
The EFF has long identified that all spheres of our society are collapsing under Ramaphosa, and the latest is that we have now become a haven for money laundering and terrorism under his leadership.
This serves as yet another confirmation of the need for the people of South Africa to go to the streets on the 20th of March 2023, to defend our nation from a money launderer who has drawn the attention of the globe to our country, due to the criminality of the white-corporate sector which he is in collaboration with.
Ramaphosa is a criminal who is leading a criminal state, and must be removed so that the economy of South Africa can be rebuilt and rescued from the hands of money launderers and terrorists.
Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 24 February 2023
