Anti-Money laundering legislation…Political will needed by govt. to get Bill passed - APNU

Anti-Money laundering legislation…Political will needed by govt. to get Bill passed – APNU

Apr 30, 2014 News

Executive member of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Joseph Harmon has made it clear that Guyana can become fully compliant with its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering of the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation, once there is the political will exercised from the government’s side.

APNU’s Joseph Harmon

He said that position was communicated to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFTAF) officials who came to Guyana to discuss and provide technical support for the passage of the said Bill.
“We made it clear to them that we can achieve the objective of a fully-compliant Bill sent to CFATF by the meeting of next month; the meeting is between the 25th and the 29th of May and I think we have enough time to get all of the things done, but we have to get the political will on the side of the government to make it happen.”
APNU’s concerns as it pertains to their support for the passage of the AML/CFT Bill are the assent by President Donald Ramotar to key pieces of legislation that have already been approved in the National Assembly, in addition to their amendments to the AML Bill.
Harmon said that the statements made by Attorney General Anil Nandlall “when he said that he will have the President not sign anything” are very unhelpful in bringing about the political will necessary to move forward.
“We did not say that the President must sign back exactly what we said we had a problem with; we said that he must put in place the mechanism for it to happen and the Attorney General knows fully well what that means,” said Harmon.
According to Harmon, APNU started the process which would allow for that to happen even before the 2014 budget debates started.
“I do hope that good sense prevails and we are able to get back to the table and get these things accomplished.”
Harmon said that APNU is aware of the consequences if the AML/CFT Bill is not passed and stressed that does not need to happen. “This is the problem that I have, where they [government] just decide that look, this is what is going to happen… we are going to take it to the brink and see who will blink.”
According to the APNU Member of Parliament, the Bill is still before the Parliamentary Select Committee and all the parties will be meeting today to try and finalize the amendments that are there.
“So I have no doubt that within a short space of time we can have the amendments as well as our amendments brought to the floor of the National Assembly in time for us to be able to satisfy the CFATF requirements, but then of course, those are the preconditions which we established and the government seems unwilling to budge on and that is not good.”
Harmon also responded to the statement made by AG Nandlall over the Public Procurement Commission that “the AFC has been unable to get APNU to move the process forward because it requires all three parties, it requires two-thirds majority in the Parliament, so if the AFC gets the APNU to move forward with the Procurement Commission next week, the government is ready to move forward.”
Harmon said that “we are supporting the AFC in the establishing of the Public Procurement Commission we have backed them.”
“Government has to submit names to the Public Accounts Committee which they had promised to do a long time ago and they reneged, and it’s because they have entered into an agreement with the AFC which requires them to submit their names by a certain time and because government did not get what they want, they just decided that they are not going to submit the names and they didn’t.”
According to Harmon, the PAC is going to go ahead and process the names they have and get it before the National Assembly “so whether they decide to submit names or not, there are names there before the PAC and they have started processing those names. So it is very possible to get the Public Procurement Commission that the AFC wants in time. Everything can be done once you have the will to do it, that is the point we are making.”