Last minute talks breakdown over support for anti money laundering Bill

…Ramotar laments blackmail politics by Opposition

Head of State, Donald Ramotar, yesterday in a last minute effort to secure support for the passage of the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill (AML/CFT), met with the political Opposition at Office of the President, but did not achieve the desired results.
He accused the Opposition of engaging in blackmail politics. Ramotar, along with Attorney General, Anil Nandlall and Junior Finance Minister, Bishop Juan Edghill, subsequently briefed the media on the meeting and said that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is maintaining its hard-line stance that their amendments be included in the Bill that will finally be taken to the Parliament for a vote.
The President reported that the Alliance for Change (AFC), while they were all along tying their support for the Bill to the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission, it has now joined with APNU in demanding the inclusion of the additional amendments.
According to the President, the Bill as it stands is compliant with the recommendations of the Caribbean Financial Action Taskforce (CFATF) and as such to avoid international blacklisting, the Opposition should allow the Bill to be approved and the proposed amendments addressed subsequently.
CFATF requires a report from Guyana by tomorrow or risk being submitted to the Financial Action Taskforce (FAFT) for a review, which could blacklist the country internationally.
Guyana is currently already blacklisted in the region by CFATF.
President Ramotar reported that the Opposition is adamant that they will only return the Bill to the House once their amendments are included. Those amendments however have not been drafted as yet and are still with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel (CPC), Cecil Durjohn.
Attorney General, Nandlall, when asked about the drafting of those amendments, told the media corps present at Office of the President that what has been presented for them to draft, according to their understanding and training regarding CFATF models and principles, makes it offensive.
He said that the CPC has reported that the draft is offensive to the regime promulgated by CFATF regionally and has since written to the Select Committee seeking further guidance and instruction.
Nandlall said that what APNU is proposing will have serious ramifications for the substantive law and can even affect fundamental principles such as the autonomy of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as well as its insulation from the political fray.
He also reminded that even the CFATF’s Roger Hernandez, had warned that the proposed amendments by APNU run the risk of causing the entire Bill to be non compliant. Reminded of the Opposition’s concern that the substantive law was weak and there was a lack of enforcement, the President said that this is precisely what Government and CFATF is looking to remedy.
According to Ramotar, “the Bill before the Parliament is to correct whatever deficiencies the Act had as far as enforcement is concerned.”
He said that the Bill is to give legal effect to measures to be taken if persons were to be found guilty of money laundering.
Ramotar further noted that the same legislation exists across the Caribbean and he is not aware of any successful prosecutions in any of those other countries.
“One of the things the Opposition is saying is that we have not made any charges, then the whole region is deficient as far as implementation is concerned.”
Meanwhile Nandlall stressed that there are continuous waves of assessment of countries by CFATF. The last one by CFATF for Guyana was as a result of failure of prosecution and institution of charges.
The next wave will focus on enforcement, “Hernandez made that very clear,” said Nandlall.
Junior Finance Minister, Bishop Edghill, told media operatives that as of February, 9 last, all of the parties in the Special Select Committee were in agreement with the recommendations sent by CFATF.
He said that the terms of reference that the Committee had been given was to deal with the Bill and not to address any other clauses in the Principle Act which the Opposition is now pushing the Government to accept.
Minister Edghill reminded that the CFATF representative, Hernandez, did warn that Guyana did run the risk of being non compliant as a result of the APNU proposals.
He said that to tinker with the substantive Act when there is no time is putting Guyana at risk.
“There is no way that the APNU could convince the people of Guyana that good faith exist in getting a Bill to the parliament that would bring us into compliance and prevent us from being blacklisted…what they are seeking to do by saying they are strengthening the Bill is putting the country at risk at having a Bill that is non compliant.”
He charged that the issues APNU wants to address require national consultations, “CFATF did not ask for these matters to be addressed.”
Edghill was adamant that all present in the meeting were clear on is that if there isn’t a Bill by February 28, Guyana will be blacklisted.
“The APNU has finally agreed that there is a deadline…what we have however is the putting of pressure for all these extraneous concessions.”