The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group has published Angola’s second enhanced follow-up report and second technical compliance re-rating, upgrading the country’s rating on FATF Recommendation 24 on transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons from non-compliant to partially compliant. The report assesses progress since Angola’s 2023 mutual evaluation report in addressing technical compliance deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework. It does not assess improvements in effectiveness. The upgrade reflects progress on parts of Recommendation 24, including Angola’s risk assessment of some legal persons, requirements for legal persons to keep certain information, record-retention obligations on beneficial ownership after dissolution, and powers for competent authorities to obtain basic and beneficial ownership information. ESAAMLG nevertheless found significant gaps still remain. These include uncertainty over whether formation information covers all legal persons, the absence of a requirement for companies to be registered in a public company registry, incomplete obligations on companies to maintain basic information such as legal form and shareholder or member registers, no clear requirement to ensure information is accurate and updated on a timely basis, no requirement for a resident natural person to be accountable to authorities for providing beneficial ownership information, and unresolved weaknesses on international cooperation and monitoring of information received from other countries. Angola will remain in the enhanced follow-up process and continue reporting to ESAAMLG on progress in improving and implementing its AML, CFT and counter-proliferation financing measures. ESAAMLG also notes that effectiveness will be assessed in a subsequent follow-up assessment, with Immediate Outcome ratings subject to review if sufficient progress is made.

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