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REPORT TO WHO?

Dec 30, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

I am not certain that what I am reading has been accurately reported. It cannot be.
I really cannot see how the government is going to order the Financial Investigative Unit (FIU) to report on what it was doing for the past five years. If this is what the government plans to do, then Guyana is going down that slippery slope in which there is little respect for the independence of independent institutions.
When the PPP was in government and had tried to pass legislation to be compliant with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the opposition, which held the majority in the National Assembly, vetoed the legislation.
This action by APNU and the AFC placed Guyana’s financial system at risk of being blacklisted and subject to sanctions. One of the reasons given for not approving the legislation was that the then opposition wanted an independent Financial Investigative Unit.
APNU and the AFC were unwilling to compromise on the issue and refused to give its support to the legislation. It stuck to its position and Guyana found itself having to launch a strong lobby to avoid being blacklisted.
No sooner did the APNU/AFC coalition win the elections, it rushed to pass legislation which granted autonomy to the FIU, thus insulating it from political control. The legislation affirmed the independence of the FIU.
It is therefore frightening to now learn that the very coalition which has pressed for the independence of the FIU, and which desired it to be freed of any form of political control, is now seeking to ask that unit to account for its actions.
The FIU should refuse. It has no obligation to make any such report known to the government or to anyone in the government.
It is the custodian of highly sensitive information about suspicious transactions, and while the government may not be asking it for details about these transactions, the government has no right to demand that the FIU report to it. The FIU should refuse to do so. It has been granted by the parliament powers of independence and cannot be supervised by any officer of the government.
The FIU should only be allowed to report to two entities. The first is the Public Accounts Committee, and in this regard it should only report on the use of finances provided by the government.  It should file its report about its activities to the National Assembly and not allow itself to be drawn into reporting functions to any government operatives.
The second is the uncreated Anti Money Laundering and the Countering the Financing of Terrorism Authority.
It is understandable that the government will want to know in a general sense that the FIU is working. There are established mechanisms such as those mentioned above for this to occur.
But the FIU is not permitted to report directly on its activities to any government official. This would make it subject to political control, the very thing that the coalition government was seeking to avoid.
It was APNU which in June of this year rushed legislation through the National Assembly which created an Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Authority. That ten- member authority is allowed to give advice (not instructions) of a general nature as to the policy to be followed.
The FIU may provide information to the Authority so long as this does not compromise its independence. It shall submit financial estimates and returns. This is what the law provides.
There is nothing in the law that states that the FIU has to account to any government official what it has been doing for the past five years. If there is any person who feels that the FIU has to so account, that person should disabuse himself of herself of that belief.

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