The government is determined to complete the implementation of the action plan of the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in order to remove Mauritius from the FATF list and from the list of third countries with high
European Commission (EC) risk as soon as possible.
The Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr. Mahen Seeruttun, made this statement
this morning in the National Assembly in response to the Private Notice Question relating to the registration of Mauritius
on the list of high-risk third countries published by the European Commission.
Minister Seeruttun underlined that the placement of Mauritius on the EC list is a consequence
of the country's inclusion by the FATF on its list of jurisdictions under increased surveillance. “However, the
FATF has not required the application of enhanced due diligence to jurisdictions on its list, and
therefore, the EC's decision to go beyond that of the FATF is not in line with practice," he said.
declared.
Protecting the country's economy, emphasized the Minister, is a government priority, and in this
optics, a dialogue will be initiated with the EC through a teleconference by a technical team
Mauritius on May 13, 2020. Mr. Seeruttun affirmed that as part of the implementation of the action plan
FATF, Mauritius needs to demonstrate a higher level of effectiveness of its anti-corruption systems.
money laundering (AML) and against the financing of terrorism (FT). In this regard, four factors
are important to take into account, namely political commitment, national coordination,
human resources, as well as technical assistance in areas where the expertise and skills
locales are not available.
In addition, Mr. Seeruttun clarified, Mauritius has obtained technical assistance from the Global AML/CFT Fund of
the European Union and the German government, through the German Development Agency,
for the implementation of the FATF action plan. Even during the sanitary curfew, the minister pointed out,
Mauritius has continued to work intensively with these technical assistance providers.