Statement on Namibia’s exit of the FATF grey list

Statement by the Shadow Minister of International Relations and Trade

Text of the issued media release of 20 June 2026, as published by the Independent Patriots for Change on ipc-namibia.com.

The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) welcomes Namibia’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, confirmed at the FATF plenary on 19 June 2026. We credit the Financial Intelligence Centre and the National Focal Committee for closing all 13 deficiencies ahead of the May 2026 deadline. Grey-listing raised the cost of every cross-border payment a Namibian makes, the IMF estimates, it cuts foreign capital inflows by as much as 7.6% of GDP. Therefore, this lifts a real weight off the importer, the trader, and the family receiving money from abroad.

1. But a grey-list exit must not be misread, the FATF certifies the framework, the laws, the registers, the prosecutorial powers. It does not certify that money laundering has stopped, nor that those powers will ever be turned on the politically connected.

2. Two of the thirteen weaknesses Namibia just corrected were gaps in beneficial-ownership transparency and the failure to prosecute money laundering, precisely the tools needed to expose the petroleum, mining, and procurement networks this office has tracked.

3. [...]

4. A beneficial-ownership regime FATF calls a model is worthless if it cannot name the owners behind those entities.

5. The win is already at risk. We are reliably informed that even journalists cannot, in practice, obtain beneficial-ownership information from the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA), where access to the register sits effectively closed. A register that foreign assessors can tick but the Namibian press and public cannot search is not the win our country was promised.

6. A grey-list exit measures whether the plumbing works. Whether the water ever reaches those who hold power is the only test that matters to the Namibian, whose clinics and schools are drained by the money this framework was built to stop.

IPC therefore calls on:

• The Minister of Finance, subsequently BIPA and the Financial Intelligence Centre to publish the verified beneficial owners of every company holding a petroleum exploration or supply licence, and confirm that the FIC’s strengthened powers will be applied to the capture network already before the courts and the National Assembly.
• The management and Chief Executive Officer of BIPA open practical access to the beneficial-ownership register to competent authorities, to Parliament, and to the public and press who pay the prescribed fees in accordance with the law.
• The Minister of Finance table before the National Assembly the full list of the 13 FATF action items and the measures taken to close each one.

Namibia is all we have
Namibia is not for sale
We must and can save it!

Extract. Passages on matters before the courts omitted.

Back to rodneycloete.com.na