Latest update April 12th, 2026 12:50 AM
Guyana faces likely impact of OECD blacklisting?
Dear Editor,
As the good doctor confirms, Guyana has been given until the end of next month to upgrade its anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism law in keeping with recommendations. What the good doctor is not telling us is that these recommendations are many and somewhat complicated.
Mercifully, in a sense, he was not characteristically long-winded about the implications of missing that deadline. In fact he was silent.
Though Ron Webster as Chairman of the PSC confirmed that foreign investors would be reluctant to come here if the money laundering laws are weak, no one seems to be telling the man in the street just how Guyana’s non compliance will affect him or her in real and devastating ways.
If Guyana is blacklisted by the OECD countries, and that seems imminent at the end of May in a mere four weeks, there will be major upheaval in Guyana’s banking system. Every movement of money in or out of Guyana will be intensely scrutinized by the transacting banks here and abroad. The process will be long and tedious as corresponding banks overseas through which these transactions pass, will want to be 101 per cent certain that any Guyanese transaction is squeaky clean and whiter than white.
There is a cost penalty involved in this level of scrutiny which goes well beyond the ‘know thy customer’ imperative and it will be passed on to the transacting customer. I envisage that some corresponding banks will determine that it is not worth their while to carry out such painstaking and time consuming scrutiny for the relatively paltry sums of money involved in most Guyanese transactions.
Money transfer businesses will feel the pressure in a big way and will increase the cost of their transactions. As a result remittances may slow down, reduce in dollar terms and may calcify as senders in the US, Canada, the UK and the Caribbean are systematically harassed to show origins and sources of the money being remitted.
At present annual remittances to Guyana may total as much as US$200 Million. When this drops significantly or dries up almost completely, dependent Guyanese will suffer hardships with few options at their disposal; finding work at the Marriott Hotel Construction site is clearly not one of them and the strain on the economy will be formidable.
It is a fact that the US, Canada, UK and the EU have teamed up to give Guyana the needed assistance to get itself in order for the May deadline and the looming OECD blacklisting.
Against this background one would expect Guyana to maintain and improve its friendly relations with these assisting governments. Not so!
Recently, around the time of the Falklands visit, we went out of our way to officially insult one of the countries we are depending on heavily to send experts to work with us on compliance matters to meet the end of May deadline.
Why not let the people know the likely impact of OECD blacklisting if Guyana misses the deadline?
W. Hamley Case
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