Why the opposition will not support the Anti-Money Laundering Bill

Jun 26, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Minister of Legal Affairs is quoted in the Stabroek News that the “Government is counting on APNU to get the Anti-money laundering Bill passed.” The Minister must be the only person in the country who believes that APNU will support the Bill without further amendments.
“ What the people of Guyana now know thanks to the Alliance For Change (AFC), is that since May 2011, the PPP Government was well aware that it needed to get this Bill passed into law to bring Guyana into compliance with the money laundering laws as demanded by the international community.
To wait until April 2013 to take action on this Money Laundering issue is an act of monstrous injustice and gross incompetence by the regime against the people of Guyana.
What these actions reveal is that the Ministers of Finance and Legal Affairs are unfit for leadership at the highest levels; they have abandoned their desk for the studios of NCN thus rendering the country into this unfortunate position. These acts by the PPP are incompatible with transparency and the democratic process.
The AFC has rightly stated that it has been over 10 years since the laws have been passed to establish the Public Procurement Commission but the government has been dragging its feet on the issues since an independent Commission will de-construct all the Ponzi Scheme contracts to their best friends and replace them with competitive awards based on best practices in the procurement industry.
No more will their best buddy get a contract for $3.4 billion a year notwithstanding the cost at which he sold pharmaceuticals to the state.
From what we gather from this debate, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan is leading his party, while the President follows in the footsteps of his comrades at Freedom House. There has been no discernible change in this or the previous regime; just more of the same policies but executed in a worst and more divided fashion.
For the first time they have begged APNU/PNC and the AFC for their support of the Anti-money Laundering Bill, but Granger and Ramjattan will have none of it. Wasn’t it the PPP who peddled on the campaign trail that a “vote for the AFC is a vote for the PNC”? It looks like the Attorney General and many others in the regime will be voting for the PNC or the AFC.
The opposition leader was quoted in Kaieteur News as saying the he was told that the President has a copy of the letter which CFTAF recommended that he shares with members of the Government, the Leader of the Opposition as well as Members of the Opposition and all technical public sector officials involved in the fight against money laundering.
Granger further stated that the letter noted that Guyana’s Report to the Plenary of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force be comprehensive and submitted to the Secretariat by May 6, 2013 well ahead of the Plenary Meeting on May 27. An upset Granger who did not receive a copy of that letter from the President, asked him for an explanation of his refusal to share the letter. As such, he instructed the APNU representatives of the Select Committee to take no further part in the work of the Committee until a satisfactory explanation is received from the President.
Ramjattan, on the other hand, has made it very clear that the AFC will only support the Anti-money laundering Bill if the President signs the two Bills passed by Parliament earlier this year and if the Procurement Commission is fully established.
The APNU/PNC leadership is fully aware of the political risk in joining the PPP on this vote without securing the Public Procurement Commission and the president assenting to the two Bills passed by Parliament.
The facts are Guyana is losing some $15B to $20B a year to corruption, kickbacks and fraud because there is no Public Procurement Commission. That is G$15 to $20 billion less to spend on the roads in Linden, Lima and housing for the poor and the working class.
The people will never forgive the opposition if they join with the government and vote for this Bill. So it is clear that the Minister of Legal Affairs is not rational in his thoughts by begging APNU and the AFC to support the Bill.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

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