The Anti-Money Laundering charade

The Alliance For Change has been, and remains, greatly concerned with the prevalence of dubiously obtained wealth within the Guyanese economy and its effects on legitimate business investors. In particular, the party believes that the proceeds of a significant trade in illegal narcotics have become the basis for a faÇade of local investments aimed at plausibly accounting for huge sums of illicitly accumulated money. This constitutes money laundering, and the scale of such operations and the ease with which they are funded make it difficult for legitimate businesses to remain competitive. While money laundering is not new, and takes place in most countries of the world, it is generally addressed by constantly evolving legislation and the implementation of these by competent investigative and prosecutorial bodies. In other words, some of the bad guys get caught and punished, and this signals to the general population that the authorities are serious about dealing with the problem and have systems in place to do so. Today, most of the world has already signed onto a harmonized approach to deal jointly with Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism. Led by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the effort in each jurisdiction is concentrated in a legislative and regulatory framework that caters for the identification, investigation and prosecution of offenders and provides for the setting up of effective Financial Intelligence Units to act as the main coordinating agencies for addressing financial crimes. Guyana has had an Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act (AML/CFT) in place since 2009 and a Financial Intelligence Unit set up shortly thereafter. A previous Anti-Money Laundering Act had been around since the year 2000. By now there ought to have been a number of prosecutions for offences under these Acts. This has not happened, and it is difficult to conclude that the PPP-C government is serious about dealing with the problem of money laundering in Guyana. In addition, Guyana has been non-compliant with the recommendations of the FATF’s regional affiliate, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), for a number of years, culminating in that body issuing a public statement in November 2013, advising its members to “consider implementing counter-measures to protect their financial systems from the ongoing money laundering and terrorist financing risks emanating from Guyana”. This has placed Guyana firmly on the CFATF “blacklist” with the Government now anxious to avoid getting onto the broader FATF list of delinquent jurisdictions, when that body meets again in June of this year. The Government’s attitude over the last year has been baffling. Having finally tabled a Bill of recommended amendments to the AML/CFT Act in April of 2013, it has since sought to create as much public anxiety as possible over its non-passage by the National Assembly. The opposition political parties have each set conditions for approval of this Bill, and these have so far been rejected by the Government. A series of deadlines have come and gone, each of which was to have seen severe sanctions imposed on Guyana by international financial institutions. To date, these have not come to pass. Notwithstanding the urgency of ensuring that Guyana becomes fully compliant with all of the recommendations of the CFATF, the AFC believes that the Government of Guyana has deliberately set out to create a national crisis with the intention of deepening political divisions in the country and hopefully driving citizens back to traditional voting patterns. Having dithered for years, they have suddenly become hysterical about passing legislation to deal with money laundering. They have spared no effort in depicting the Opposition as the bad guys – unpatriotic and unconcerned about the future of our country. They have steadfastly rejected all of the Opposition’s conditions for approving passage of the Bill – and it needs to be stressed that none these conditions are unreasonable or unjust. In fact, the people of Guyana would benefit immensely if the Government were to end this fiasco by agreeing to all of the demands of the Opposition. Local Government elections with reforms to the system and an independent Public Procurement Commission cannot possibly be bad for Guyana. The Government has also expended a great deal of effort into roping in various stakeholders and other spokespersons to help spread doomsday messages on the eve of each deadline. Most of these messages conclude that the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Bill is so vital it ought not to be used by the political opposition as a bargaining chip. The AFC utterly rejects this notion and will not be intimidated by full-page advertisements and other public statements that merely mimic the Government’s position. For decades Guyana has not been a well-run country and the consequences of this are manifested in the daily hardship experienced by ordinary Guyanese. The strong and independent national institutions needed to reverse this situation will only come about as a result of political pressure applied against a government bent on long-term political domination. The Government of Guyana has a duty to all its citizens to resolve this problem and not to exacerbate it. However, it is clear from its posturing that it would rather spend time bashing the Opposition than working towards a solution. It may not yet have dawned upon the geniuses at Freedom House that any undesirable consequences resulting from the current deadlock will reflect a failure on the part of the Government and not of the Opposition. Rather than wait for the penny to drop in Robb Street, the AFC has presented a road map showing how, in a few simple moves, this deadlock can be resolved in a way that maximizes the benefits to the people of Guyana and gives all three political parties what they want. At this juncture it is difficult to predict how the other parties will respond, but it is clear that the Guyanese public has had enough of this charade and wishes to move on.