Fight money laundering

b) Trust Property Control Act c) Societies Act d) Proceeds and Instruments of Crime

Act; e) Counter Terrorism Act; f) Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act; g) Extradition Act; h) Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters

Act; i) Biological and Toxin Weapons ( Pro

hibition) Act; j) Chemical Weapons ( Prohibition) Act; k) Nuclear Weapons ( Prohibition) Act; l) Precious and Semi- Precious Stones

( Protection) Act; and m) Real Estate Professionals Act.

My colleagues will present these consequential amendments. I now wish to highlight the provisions of the Financial Intelligence Bill. The Bill has eight ( 8) parts with a total of sixty- three ( 63) clauses. a) Part 1 covers preliminary matters: Under this Part, Clause 2 of the Bill subsumes the definition of “beneficial ownership” as amended in 2021. The clause amends the definitions of “business relationship” and “specified party” to make them consistent with the FATF and Global Forum Standards and improve readability. Further, the clause amends the definition of prominent influential people to remove “religious leaders”. Further, Clause 2 also introduces new definitions, such as the definitions of “virtual asset” and “virtual asset service providers” to comply with the revised FATF standards on virtual assets; and definition of a “trustee”, “protector”, “risk management systems” and “tip- off”.

b) Part II provides for the establishment of the Financial Intelligence Agency: Clause 6 is amended to enable the FIA to disseminate financial intelligence spontaneously or upon request to relevant competent authorities.

c) Part III provides for the establishment of the National Coordinating Committee on Financial Intelligence. Under this Part, Clause 8 of the Bill sets the membership of the National Coordinating Committee on Financial Intelligence ( NCCFI) at Permanent Secretary level. The clause appoints the

Permanent Secretary to the President as the Chairperson of the NCCFI.

Further, clause 8 expands the composition of the NCCFI to include other critical stakeholders, such as the Botswana Defense Force. The clause further incorporates the mandate of National Counter Terrorism Committee to NCCFI.

d) Part IV covers the duty to implement programmes and identify customers. Under this Part, Clause 17 introduces an obligation to register or license agents for Money or Value Transfer Service Providers. Clauses 24 and 25 prescribe penalties for a person who authorises the establishment or maintenance of anonymous accounts and shell banks, respectively.

e) Part V provides for keeping of records. Clause 36 of the Bill enables the FIA to initiate analysis of information on its own initiative based on information in its possession or information received from other sources to generate a suspicious transaction report.

f) Part VI provides for reporting obligations and cash transactions. Under this Part, Clause 44 increases the period of interruption of a transaction to 15 working days.

g) Part VII covers referral, supervision and exchange of information. Clause 48 introduces an obligation to supervisory authorities to prevent criminals from holding controlling interest, be in management or beneficial owner of entities they license.

h) Part VIII provides for general provisions.

Schedule I of specified parties has been amended to include virtual asset service providers, trust and company service providers while Schedule II is amended to include the Department of Mines. Schedule III has been amended to narrow the definition of accountable institutions for the purposes of the Financial Intelligence Act. The reason for that is to ease monitoring and supervision of these entities, to improve Botswana’s compliance with the FATF Standards.

This is an abridged statement on the

Financial Intelligence Bill by Peggy O. Serame,

Minister of Finance and Economic Development