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Anti-money laundering bill…President wanted to divide the opposition to rule – Ramjattan
– Rejects notion AFC has changed position
By Latoya Giles
“Had President Donald Ramotar just sat and compromised with all political parties, the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill may not have had all of this contention.”
Leader of the Alliance For Change Khemraj Ramjattan
This notion was expressed by Leader of the Alliance For Change Khemraj Ramjattan. The party yesterday called a press conference just hours before the National Assembly was expected to discuss the AML Bill.
Ramjattan also stressed that the Head of State was not accurately representing the Alliance for Change (AFC)’s position.
According to Ramjattan, President Ramotar had not spoken to the party for ten months, but rushed into talks just two days before the Bill was expected to be discussed in Parliament.
“The President somehow did not understand that he needed all parties in the process for the passage of this Bill,” Ramjattan said yesterday.
He opined that the President wanted to “divide the opposition to rule”.
“He’s not going to get us to do that. He wasn’t talking to us for ten months and just two days to go he comes and misrepresents us,” Ramjattan noted.
He said about one year ago it was made clear to the Government that the AFC would give the Bill its support if the Public Procurement Commission was operationalised. That position has been well documented and we stand by it. By ‘operationalising’ Ramjattan said that all parties must submit to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament, their nominees for the Commission. According to Ramjattan, the PAC will recommend and the House will approve the five persons to serve as Commissioners.
Given this, Ramjattan said that the AFC had strongly urged the Government to work with APNU to reach a compromise position and pushed for a tripartite arrangement to reach compromise. He said that the Public Procurement Commission ultimately cannot be established without the support of all three political entities in Parliament.
“The AFC is an independent party but recognizes that all Parliamentary Parties have a role to play in the decision making process and the concerns of each must be addressed,” Ramjattan said. We said that we told the President that it was a grand opportunity to show consensus we would have a “win win” scenario. He didn’t want to have that.”
Meanwhile, Ramjattan said that it is not clear when the Bill will come up in Parliament, since the Chief Parliamentary Counsel has requested more time to draft the proposals by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) as it relates to the Anti–Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation.
Ramjattan said that given this recent development, the Parliamentary Special Select Committee which is reviewing the Bill has not been able to complete its work, making it impossible for it to be tabled in the National Assembly today.
Ramjattan said that the Committee members received a letter from the Parliamentary draftsman stating, “I need considerable amount of time to do a thorough job.”
According to Ramjattan, the members are not aware of how much more time the Parliamentary counsel needs. The Committee will meet again on March 5.
Guyana has a February 28 deadline to submit a report to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) on progress made on the Bill.
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