The PPPC’s grand deception

Feb 23, 2014 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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The People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration is misleading the Guyanese nation and the international community by a cunning campaign of misinformation about the Anti-Money-Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act.
The PPPC administration’s record of the introduction and enforcement of such legislation in Guyana over the past fourteen years has been one of inconsistency and insincerity.  That reputation has created public apprehension and confusion instead of fostering confidence and certainty.
The PPPC administration has been proven to be deliberately dilatory and delinquent in enforcing its own anti-money laundering legislation. It has not been diligent to implement reforms. It has reacted only when forced to do so by direct threats of sanctions by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and the international financial community.
The PPPC first introduced the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act of 2000 fourteen years ago. It was assented to by President Bharrat Jagdeo on 29th March 2000, but was never fully enforced. The Government of Guyana, as a result of its non-enforcement, became the subject of severe criticism by the international community.
The US Government for example, in its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) 2007, pointed out that the Bank of Guyana lacked the capacity to fully execute its mandate to supervise financial institutions for compliance with anti-money-laundering provisions. The INCSR added: “There have been no money-laundering prosecutions to date…”
The INCSR described the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as “a one-person organisation [that] is dependent upon the Ministry for its budget and office space.”  It pointed out, further, that although the FIU may request additional information from obligated entities, its analytical capabilities are severely limited by its inability to access law-enforcement data and its lack of authority to exchange information with foreign FIUs.
The US Government reported at that time that “the Guyana Government does not release statistics on the number of suspicious transaction reports received by the FIU, although the requirement to make these statistics available to relevant authorities is mandated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).”
The PPPC, responding to international censure, then established a special select committee in the National Assembly in June 2007 to examine a new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill. The committee started work a year later under the chairmanship of Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister of Finance. It took two years for the new law to be enacted in 2009.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act of 2009 was assented to by President Jagdeo on 14th August 2009. It was never fully enforced. It was further amended by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Act of 2010 to which President Jagdeo assented on 10th August 2010. This, too, was never fully enforced.
It is clear, therefore, that the PPPC administration has never been in a hurry to implement legislative changes and never evinced the political will to enforce the law against money-launderers. This was so even while it had preponderant voting strength in both the Select Committee and the National Assembly during both the eighth and ninth Parliaments from 2001 to 2011.
Despite the introduction of the new Act, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) continued to identify deficiencies and delinquencies in Guyana’s enforcement of the AML-CFT Act. It made several recommendations to strengthen the Act, empower the Bank of Guyana and enable the Financial Intelligence Unit in a series of Mutual Evaluation Reports (MER). The third round of MER, adopted by the CFATF Council of Ministers in May 2011 in Honduras, stated:
“Guyana was placed on a list of jurisdictions with strategic anti-money-laundering and combatting the financing of terrorism (AML-CFT) deficiencies that have not made sufficient progress in addressing the deficiencies and required Guyana to take specific steps to address these deficiencies by November 2013.”
CFATF reported, further, that: “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) (Amendment) Bill 2013 was presented in Parliament on April 22, 2013, a week before its deadline of April 30, 2013.” It was only in April 2013, therefore, when Guyana was threatened with being ‘blacklisted’ and deadlines for compliance were set that the Government was forced to introduce amendments to the AML-CFT Act in the National Assembly.
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), the major opposition entity, now has the unenviable task of cleaning up the fourteen-year mess caused by the PPPC’s failure to enforce its own anti-money-laundering legislation. APNU has demonstrated its determination to participate fully in the work of the parliamentary special select committee to examine the Bill in detail, to propose emendations and to ensure that the essential agencies – the Bank of Guyana, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Special Organised Crime Unit and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions – are empowered and the provisions of the amended Act are enforceable.
The PPPC has been deliberately deceiving the public. It is scaring the populace with bogus deadlines. It is trying to pressure the National Assembly into accepting the same old impotent institutions and feeble enforcement that have failed for fourteen years.
Guyana deserves better. APNU is convinced that it is only by strengthening the original Act that the scourge of money-laundering and the financing of terrorism will be eliminated.

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