Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told Parliament that the government was "doing everything necessary" to prevent South Africa from being greylisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) later this year.
Godongwana was tabling his 2022 Medium-term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday afternoon. The government introduced the General Laws Amendment Bill to tighten up laws against money laundering and corruption in line with 40 recommendations made by the FATF earlier this year.
In September, National Treasury acting director-general Ismail Momoniat told Parliament that while Treasury had raced against time to introduce legislative changes to keep South Africa off the greylist, demonstrable action by law enforcement against organised crime would make things much easier.
During his speech, Godongwana said the investigating directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had enrolled 26 cases, declaring 89 investigations, and that 165 accused were taken to court over state capture allegations.
"The Asset Forfeiture Unit has frozen or granted preservation orders to the value of R12.9 billion and returned a total of R2.9 billion to affected entities. The SIU has instituted four high court cases in relation to contracts worth R62.1 billion and SARS investigations arising from the [State Capture] Commission’s findings have resulted in the collections of R4.8 billion in unpaid taxes," said Godongwana.
Godongwana said SARS was engaged with 18 projects involving 222 cases. He said the 2022 MTBPS proposed additional resources to the budgets of the NPA, the SUI, the Financial Intelligence Centre, and SARS to probe financial crimes.
The budget annexure document said the 2022 budget provided additional funding of R8.7 billion for the Department of Police and that the 2023 budget will add to the funds of the NPA, the SIU, the Financial Intelligence Centre, and SARS.
The document said bolstering these resources would help institutions identify sophisticated financial crimes, prosecute offenders, and recover money and assets from fraud and corruption. It said maintaining the integrity of South Africa's financial system would be critical to long-term growth.
"Government is addressing deficiencies in the anti-money laundering framework identified by the Financial Action Task Force. These changes are intended to reduce the risk and incidence of financial crime and corruption, and to avoid greylisting," the annexure said.
The annexure said that over the 2023 medium-term expenditure framework period, functions critical to the anti-money laundering regime, particularly in the law enforcement agencies and the Financial Intelligence Centre, would receive additional resources to carry out this work.