APNU accuses Govt of stalling AML Bill

Mar 16, 2014 News

Brig. David Granger, the APNU leader, has said that complaints have been leveled about APNU’s role in the deliberations of the Special Select Committee.
Granger however emphatically said that APNU was the only party that was calling for the strengthening of the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill (AMLCFT).

Leader of APNU
David Granger

He said that last November the government announced the setting up of the SOCU and since then the body hasn’t even started to function. “Nobody can tell you who is the head; where is it located; has it started to work? APNU is not the organization that has been delaying this process it is entirely within the domain of the government of Guyana.”
Granger said that the government is delaying the work in the Select Committee by dragging its feet. He made reference to the next date of the Committee which is March 26 as being an example since he is of the opinion that the Committee could have reached earlier than that date. “The government is taking its own sweet time; it is not hurrying. It is talking about deadlines and not attempting to bring this matter to a closure. This is what has been happening since October 21,” he said.
Granger said that the government has no interest in speeding up this process and is scaring the population “about deadlines, catastrophe and apocalypse.”
APNU is anxious to get this matter in the Committee over and done with so that a strong Bill can be presented in the National Assembly, he said.
“We feel that because of the government’s behaviour over the last 14 years; it’s delinquency over the last fourteen years. The fact that it attracted criticism from the CFATF [Caribbean Financial Action Task Force] over the last 14 years, we needed to have a strong FIU and much of the debate, was not centered about delays; they were centered on the strengthening of the FIU and we are confident that the amendments that we have inserted will lead to a stronger FIU.”
According to Granger the big problem that CFATF had over the last 14 years is enforcement. “It is the delinquency of the FIU, the failure to be able to bring anybody to justice, the failure to submit suspicious transaction reports, the failure to have a single prosecution that has brought Guyana to where it is, nothing to do with the APNU.
“It’s the failure of the old system and APNU has worked assiduously in the Special Select Committee to ensure that the Guyanese people have a strong FIU.”