Still grey, still promising

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA

Papua New Guinea has now spent seven and a half months on the Financial Action Task Force grey list, and at the only FATF plenary since, the Marape Government chose to say nothing. When the FATF updated its list on 19 June, it recorded that PNG had deferred reporting, so the statement published against our name is still February's. Deferral is allowed for countries not facing an immediate deadline. It is also telling. Algeria and Namibia, both listed in 2024, used the same meeting to walk off the list.

The Asian Development Bank says PNG's economic stability has improved, but more work is needed before resource wealth becomes sustained growth. Its new five-year programme puts stronger public financial management and better oversight of the resource sector near the top. These are not development extras. They are the basic functions of a sovereign state, and an international lender is now paying to build them seven years into this Prime Minister's tenure.

In May 2025, the Prime Minister's office said the Government was "totally committed" to keeping PNG off the list at the October 2025 review. The listing came in February. The Treasurer then promised a faster exit than the 2014–2016 episode, which ran from 2014 to February 2016. By late June, Ian Ling-Stuckey was telling The National that PNG needed two more years of hard work. A promised sprint has become a longer march than last time.

Eighteen of 75 recommended actions were still outstanding in June, by the Treasurer's own count, and five were due by the end of September: a national risk assessment, a legal person risk assessment, and amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, the Criminal Code and the United Nations Sanctions Act. The three Bills were meant to go to Parliament in the August sitting. September is now over. The Government owes the public a plain answer on each of those five items.

Only 19 of the 23 agencies on the National Coordinating Committee turned up to its June meeting, and just 10 sent their heads. Ling-Stuckey called that "not acceptable". He is right. He also chairs that committee. If agency heads will not attend a meeting on the country's financial reputation, the question is what the Prime Minister and his ministers are doing about it.

Legislation was never the hard part. Ling-Stuckey has said the real test is statistical proof of more money-laundering prosecutions and more proceeds of crime actually recovered. That is where the Government's record is thinnest. The FATF credited PNG with getting the anti-corruption authority operating, yet commentary in The National noted in February that the new commission still lacked a track record of successful cases and penalties. Laws on paper will not satisfy the FATF without convictions and confiscations to show for them.

Ordinary Papua New Guineans carry the cost. The Australia PNG Business Council reported in March that the listing had raised concerns about investment and financial flows into an economy heavily dependent on resource exports. Every extra check by an overseas bank and every risk premium an investor adds is paid by businesses and families who did nothing wrong.

The Marape Government has spent years promising that resource deals will transform the country. It still cannot show the FATF that it can follow money through its own system. Until it can, the grey list is not a technicality. It is the most honest outside verdict this Government has received.