Govt. to amend three Acts relating to money laundering and terrorism financing

The Cabinet nod has been granted to amend the Financial Transactions Reporting Act No. 06 of 2006, Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 05 of 2006, and Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act No. 25 of 2005.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in his capacity as the Minister of Finance on Monday proposed to amend the aforementioned Acts, and the Cabinet of Ministers agreed to advise the legal draftsman to prepare the Bills accordingly.

The Government Information Department noted that these proposed amendments are based on findings of the Legal Review Committee and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) during the mutual evaluations conducted in 2010, and 2014/2015. 

Further, these amendments prepared by a committee compromising representatives of relevant agencies including the Attorney General’s Department, Legal Drafting Department and Financial Intelligence Unit was also reviewed on 17th March 2017 by an IMF technical support team.

The FATF, the global policy setter on anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) in October 2019 delisted Sri Lanka from its ‘Grey List’ after placing the country in the list in 2017 due to deficiencies in implementing the AML/CFT regime.