Booth360. A new piece of legislation, currently in the legislative circuit, aims to tighten the anti-money laundering arsenal and adapt the national legislative system to international standards.

Morocco intends to strengthen the anti-money laundering system to avoid falling into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), reports Les Inspirations Eco in its publication on Friday. However, Bill No. 12.18 amending and supplementing the Penal Code and Law No. 43.05 on the fight against money laundering will not pass as a letter in the mail to Parliament, the newspaper notes.

We learn that the Minister of Justice, Mohamed Benabdelkader, recently presented the text to the members of the Justice and Legislation Committee of the lower house and the least we can say is that some deputies are not really excited. And this despite the fact that the minister stressed the urgency of the adoption of the project to adapt the Moroccan law on the fight against money laundering to international standards and avoid the degradation of Morocco's ranking.

The daily points out that the parliament has had to adopt the government's amendments without substantive discussion on several occasions so that Morocco can comply with international recommendations, but that this time the deputies obviously do not intend to give up their right to sift through the text, which, moreover, is not unanimous.

"We need to discuss the text under normal circumstances. The urgency of the text must in no way rub off on the sovereignty of Parliament in terms of legislation, "says the parliamentarian of the PJD, Amina Maelainine, quoted by Les Inspirations Eco. It goes without saying that the debates around this bill will be lively, to say the least, on the part of both the majority and the opposition.

It must be recalled that this text amending and supplementing the Penal Code and Law No. 43.05 on the fight against money laundering was adopted by the Government Council on 28 November 2019. Les Inspirations Eco stresses that the objective of the new text is to make it possible to search for and seize illicit funds with a view to their eradication.  To adapt the national legislative system to the international standards adopted by the Financial Action Task Force in this section and to remedy the shortcomings contained in the current texts.