Anti Money Laundering Impasse …Former Canadian Deputy Judge willing to help

Nov 24, 2013 News

A Canadian former deputy Judge Oudit N. Rai (B.A.,M.A.,LL.B), has expressed his willingness to help Guyana draft its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation that would see consensus between the Government and Opposition, while complying with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations.
The former deputy Judge in providing his credentials, said that he studied AML/Anti-Terrorist Financing legislation worldwide. He added that he is currently completing an LLM (Masters in Law) in this field. He also wrote that he has analyzed the structure and function of the FINRA, the US Financial Intelligence Unit.
Rai, in a letter published in yesterday’s edition of Kaieteur News, said that he has been following Guyana’s AML closely and is aware of the “political hysteria” and “blame game” surrounding Guyana’s non compliance with the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) recommendations.
There are also the allegations of “potential negative economic and financial impact that may result from being blacklisted.”
According to Rai the insinuations that there will be negative financial implications should Guyana be non compliant are not as “severe as it is being suggested.”
He wrote, “Instead, external financial institutions handling funds originating from Guyana may require additional verification of those funds. This extra scrutiny in itself is not a bad thing, considering the lack of domestic enforcement of the existing anti-money laundering (AML) legislation in Guyana, a non-functional Financial Intelligence Unit improperly placed within the Ministry of Finance, and Guyana’s reputations as a nacro-transshipment state.
“If Guyana fails to eventually get its act together, then it runs the risk of being listed by FATF as a high risk non compliant country and will join the following high risk jurisdictions: North Korea, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, North Korea and Yemen.”
The former deputy Canadian Judge elucidated that “FATF recommendations are not unique to Guyana. Deficient countries are routinely provided with recommendations from their respective regional groups, such as CFATF, to bring their AML legislation to international standards along the FATF recommendations.
“As a result of the standardization of AML legislation, I am doubtful that the political opposition could find much to argue with the CFATF recommendations” said Rai.
He mentioned that “tactics” of the political opposition has to be viewed in the larger scheme of things that being the “President’s non assent of previously passed opposition-piloted bills and the government’s insistence in maintaining a final say in proposed procurement legislation.”
Rai said he has been following the events leading up to the defeat of the AML legislation in the National Assembly and “has noted the opposition’s complaint.”
Be that as it may Rai established that he is yet to see any substantive proposals from the opposition “as to what it wants to add or remove from the now defeated draft bill.”

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Anti Money Laundering Impasse …Former Canadian Deputy Judge willing to help

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