AG’s AML ‘Modified Version’ shows

support of APNU amendments

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is contending that its Anti-money laundering amendments for which the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) countered and provided a “Modified Version” is receiving Government support. The government position has shifted towards APNU’s, the party said. The coalition expressed those sentiments at a press conference yesterday at the Office of the Leader of the opposition.  Its Chairman Basil Williams, Shadow Finance Minister Carl Greenidge, Member of Parliament Jaipaul Sharma and Shadow Minister for Public Works and Telecommunications Joseph Harmon all shared this view.

From Left APNU’s Basil Williams, Carl Greenidge, Jaipaul Sharma, Joseph Harmon

Chairman Williams said that at the last meeting of the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on the Anti Money Laundering/ Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) the Attorney General caused the Chief Parliamentary Counsel (CPC) Cecil Dhurjon to lay over in addition to APNU’s Amendments to the 2009 AMLCFT  Act, Nandlall’s “Modified Version.” Williams said that although the AG’s amendments was not requested by the Committee, “APNU on proper perusal of its provisions was surprised to discover that the government had made a fundamental change in its approach and a major shift towards APNU’s amendments.” He added that the government had used its monopoly of the state media and the state resources in an attempt to convince the Guyanese people that APNU’s amendments were among other things not Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) compliant and would cause Guyana to be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). According to Williams, the government is “now agreeing with APNU that there should be an authority having oversight of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and cash above $ 10M can be seized anywhere in Guyana, if suspected to be the proceeds of serious crime or money laundering.” Williams said that within the Select Committee the PPP never expressed agreement with their amendments and went around the country maligning it, but choose to incorporate it within the AG’s revised version. “One must recognize that it’s a real monumental shift that they are now saying that there should be an authority. They were not saying that, they were saying that to have this authority over the FIU would make it CFATF compliant,” said Williams. He said that the government is seeking to retain the Attorney General’s power to “finger persons and organizations as terrorists or aiders and abettors or terrorists” something that APNU has expressed reservations with. Williams highlighted that this power that Government wants to repose in the AG, to finger people as terrorists in the country, “they [PPP] never included in the amendments what we had suggested. “When the Chief Parliamentary Council brought the amendments they excluded that and in their version it’s also excluded. That section gave the Attorney General power to identify people who are terrorists and terrorist organizations. We would never agree to the AG retaining that power because we see how they have abused the powers over the years…We believe that for him to have such a power it would lead to great abuse.” Williams said APNU is urging the Government to complete its support and have an “independent authority” as proposed by APNU and not insist on an authority which they (government) can totally control. Greenidge said, “Clearly the government’s concern is to retain control over the operations and the appointments and the terminations in the FIU and what lies behind it; they directly want to exercise control.”