Ministers at odds over SOCU‘s protocol
Sep 06, 2016, , http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....over-socus-protocol/
Just two years after the Special Organised Crime Unit, (SOCU) was established as a mechanism to combat money laundering and other financial crimes, there appears to be some level of uncertainty among senior government officials as it relates to its mandate.
Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had set an international standard, which countries should implement through measures adapted to their particular circumstances. These standards comprise legislative and administrative components.
Guyana’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) (Amendment) Bill was passed last year, following the establishment of SOCU.
The body was set up to deal solely with financial crimes as recommended by the FATF. But the unit, which was set up under the purview of the Guyana Police Force in 2014, recently became the topic of the news after Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Basil Williams, expressed concerns that SOCU was becoming increasingly burdened with police work.
The operation protocols for SOCU had been extended due to developments in the Guyana Police Force‘s Standing Order No. 62. According to the amendments to the Police Force Standing Order, SOCU now has powers to investigate crimes such as murders, piracy, smuggling and other offences which traditionally fall under the ambit of the police.
Owing to the developments that Minister Williams noted, the unit cannot lose focus of its core functions in policing the new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. Williams’ comment comes ahead of the much anticipated on-site visit by a five-member team from the International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) which is expected to evaluate the country’s AML/CFT management capacity.
Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams
“SOCU as you know is a creature of the AML/CFT regime. It was created under the AML/CFT legislation. It is important for us, and SOCU has been very busy, very up and about, and it is very important for Guyana that SOCU actually performs its core functions, the functions related to AML/CFT, and that it is not burdened with other police work.
SOCU is a specialised agency, and we have to work it out, nothing has come to Cabinet yet, to really determine its scope, but you know being in the FATF world, the CFATF world, the impression I have SOCU is really to be a kind of independent body,” Williams had stated.
However Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan had defended the expansion of SOCU’s workload. Minister Ramjattan believes that the added work will not burden the unit.
In an invited comment on the issue, Ramjattan said that SOCU should be allowed to assist the other police departments with investigations, since this would aid in the force’s capacity to do more work in an efficient and effective manner.
According to Ramjattan, absolutely nothing is wrong with allowing the unit to expand its outreach. He noted that “we cannot waste our resources by having a unit set up with officers sitting around waiting on word from the Financial Intelligence Unit to conduct investigations, when there is other police work left undone.”
“I see absolutely nothing wrong with allowing the unit to investigate other matter. It has not taken away from its (SOCU’s) original purpose,” he added.
Over the weekend, Opposition Parliamentarian and former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, also expressed concerns over SOCU’s added protocols
Nandlall said, “SOCU’s added mandate to investigate murder, piracy, environmental offences and a whole host of offences which are neither “specialized” nor “organized” crimes,”.
The opposition politician explained that the specialized crime unit to investigate solely and exclusively AMLCFT offences was a specific recommendation of FATF.
As such, with no specialized Organized Unit in place to treat only with AMLCFT offences, Nandlall believes there should be no optimism that Guyana will soon exit the review process of FATF.
”I warned that using SOCU to investigate any other offences may violate the relevant FATF recommendations. I was ignored. The Government has done worse. It has now institutionally expanded the scope of SOCU to investigate offences far and beyond AMLCFT offences. So, currently, we do not have a Specialized Crime Unit which exclusively investigates AMLCFT offences as is required by the FATF recommendations.”
The FATF team has announced an on-site visit to Guyana slated for some time this month.
The visit by the team is part of efforts by FATF to confirm that the process of implementing the required reforms and actions is underway to address deficiencies previously identified by that body.