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AG says Harmon is ‘misinformed’ about FATF extended deadline
GTUC shares Harmon’s position
In the wake of the revelation that the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) did not review Guyana at its recent plenary meeting a controversy of sorts has ensued between the opposition and government over the deadline.
Attorney General
Anil Nandlall
FATF will be reviewing Guyana come May 2014
However, the opposition has accused the government of knowing that Guyana was meeting FATF in May instead of February to assess whether Guyana has put legislation and steps in place to become compliant with its Anti-money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLCFT) policies. As such it has misled the nation.
The government, however, is insisting that it had no knowledge of the review by CFATF being done in May and is thankful that Guyana was not identified by FATF for any review during its February meeting in Paris.
According to the Attorney General, “Our obligations to enact the Bill has not dissipated but has shifted by about two weeks only. We are required now, to submit a report by February 28, along with the Bill, to CFATF to consider at its plenary meeting in May 2014. Nothing else has changed.”
Government said that the FATF plenary members accepted the (Caribbean Financial Action Task Force) CFATF recommendation that Guyana be reviewed subsequent to its next plenary decision in May and that it was advised that neither the FATF nor the CFATF will be issuing any Statements emanating from the Paris meeting on Guyana and that the decisions of the 2013 November CFATF meeting and plan of action remain unchanged.
In reaction to how the Anti Money Laundering events have played out, A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU), Joseph Harmon, said that the government “should now hang their heads in shame and apologise to this nation.”
According to Harmon, Governance Advisor, Gail Teixeira; Attorney General, Anil Nandlall and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh all knew very well that it was a bogus deadline but instead deliberately sought to mislead the nation and institutions such as the Private Sector Commission to create panic.
He questioned why should APNU believe anything the government says in the future and stressed that they will try to meet face to face with CFATF instead.
APNU’s Executive Member Joseph Harmon
The Attorney General, responding to Harmon’s assertion of Government purporting a “bogus deadline” for the passage of the AMLCFT before Guyana is further blacklisted said that he is shocked about Harmon’s statement.
According to Nandlall it is either that Mr. Harmon “orbits in another planet or he is uninformed and deliberately chooses to remain so about the issues.
“The press carried detailed articles of the FATF meeting. Many countries were reviewed. Guyana could easily have been one of them. Fortunately, we were not.”
The Attorney General said that APNU is disappointed that Guyana is not reviewed and blacklisted. “As I said on a number of occasions, I do not rule out the possibility that they want that to happen so that the economy would be adversely affected, people will then blame and hold the Government responsible while the APNU can extract some cheap political mileage and benefit, therefrom.
“Maybe that is their grand plan. If it is, they should say so, candidly, and stop engaging in shenaniganism and political artifice, creating a facade that they want the Bill passed.”
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