Anti-Money Laundering Legislation… International blacklisting looms

May 01, 2014 News

Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, has announced that the plenary meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFTAF) that will review Guyana on its Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) progress might see Guyana without an enacted Bill.

The meeting which is scheduled for this month by the CFATF still hopes that it would see Guyana passing the necessary legislation to possibly avoid being blacklisted internationally.

Guyana was last year blacklisted by CFATF but without the legislation being enacted after that blacklisting the country is now heading in the direction of international blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which is the head body in France).

This tier of blacklisting, according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, will see the Guyanese economy “estranged and alienated financially and economically from 190 countries in the world. The International Financial Institutions that will cease funding to Guyana.”

Dr. Luncheon, at his post Cabinet press briefing yesterday, said that while throughout the region Government’s are usually the errant body that would eventually always subscribe to the CFATF and FATF guidelines, in Guyana’s case it is different.

“The government of Guyana is not the obstacle to Guyana subscribing to CFATF and FATF guidelines …It is the opposition the Parliamentary– A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and Alliance For Change (AFC) — that remains the sole obstacle to Guyana subscribing to CFTAF and FATF guidelines.”

APNU Executive Member, Joseph Harmon, contrary to what Luncheon is saying had previously said with respect to their Partnership meeting with the CFTAF officials that ““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 May 25 and May 29. 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.”

According to Luncheon, the CFATF has had to endure much and indeed has done much more in efforts to bring Guyana on board and have Guyana subscribe at any one time.

CFATF’s latest efforts to have Executives visit Guyana and meet with Government and the opposition as well as stakeholders to discuss “the fate of the Anti Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism amendment Bill of 2014” is an example of such.

Luncheon took umbrage to the statements he attributed to APNU during the visit of the CFTAF officials. He said that the opposition reportedly disclosed a contention of theirs that “the woes bedeviling the enactment of the AMLCFT Bill 2014 are more political than legal.”

Luncheon questioned how would the CFATF officials interpret the statements made by APNU. “Under what duress would they be meeting Government, parliamentary opposition, and stakeholders in the context of the statement by APNU that indeed political and not legal issues contribute to the woes in enacting the AMLCFT amendment Bill?”

“A strange message is the contention of Cabinet to send to the executive of CFTAF of this historic visit and indeed in the run up to the May 2014 Plenary at which it is highly unlikely that Guyana would be tabling, presenting and enact AMLCFT amendment Act,” said Luncheon.

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Anti-Money Laundering Legislation… International blacklisting looms

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