The fight against money laundering and terrorism financing is one of the Government's main attentions due to the conflict in Cabo Delgado. Mozambique is another country that experiences terror and needs various types of support to deal with the situation.

One of the ways found to help the country control the insurgency was to recommend measures that should be implemented within two years. The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) reviewed between November 25 and December 6, 2019, the level of compliance with a series of 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to the Center for Public Integrity (CIP).

From the results, it was found that within two years, Mozambique has only fulfilled seven of the 40 recommendations, or 20%. "Of the six most relevant recommendations, Mozambique complied with only 1, equivalent to 16%," reads the document of the IPC.

The ESAAMLG mission found several weaknesses in Mozambique in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, including the absence of an assessment of the real money laundering and terrorist financing risks; the lack of demonstration of the use by relevant institutions of GiFim's use of financial intelligence to initiate or support money laundering investigations or to trace the proceeds of crime; there has been ineffective identification and prosecution of money laundering and terrorist financing crimes; the authorities have failed to demonstrate that adequate efforts are being made to address the risk of terrorist financing; and Mozambique's facto not adopt preventive seizure measures and financial investigations are not routinely used to trace the proceeds of crime.

The document we have cited shows that Mozambique must still strive to fulfill 80% of the "forgotten" recommendations.

"There is no particular reason why the national money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment has not been conducted in a timely manner other than the inertia of the government." writes the IPC.