Enough. It is time that the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT)  (Amendment) Bill is passed by the National Assembly. The longer this aggravating and enervating impasse drags out, the greater the risk to thousands of people in the country whose only faults are in their choice of politicians and their disinterest in national affairs. While the government has played the hysteria card to the hilt, it is difficult to gauge what the real repercussions would be if the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) came to the justifiable conclusion that the politicians here were not serious about rectifying the AML/CFT Act and kicked the problem up to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for a ruling in May. It is not a risk that the country should take.

There are a few home truths about this saga that should be underlined. The first is that the PPP/C government is to be held completely and solely responsible for Guyana’s present non-compliance with international anti-money laundering standards. As we have pointed out before in these columns, the PPP/C government of former President Jagdeo was warned on several occasions about the consequences of not implementing recommendations made by the CFATF. A January 2010 evaluation by the CFATF underlined the seriousness of this situation. That was over four years ago and with roughly two years of a PPP/C majority in Parliament still to run. That one fact alone emphasizes how unwilling and reckless the PPP/C has been with regard to this legislation and the nation’s welfare. Therefore, all of the sanctimonious outpourings about opposition recalcitrance in particular from Finance Minister Singh and Presidential Adviser Teixeira are the worst forms of hypocrisy as they were both part of President Jagdeo’s administration.

History will undoubtedly record the period of Jagdeo governance from 2003 to 2011 as one of the darkest and replete with the most egregious crimes that the AML/CFT bill is seeking to counter. During this period, there is little doubt that rampant money-laundering and the financing of terrorism was occurring in the shadowy activities of the several death squads and the unrestrained activities of convicted drug lord Roger Khan, who was bold enough to state that he had assisted the Jagdeo administration in fighting the crime wave triggered by the 2002 prison escapees. It is a period that will undoubtedly require careful examination of why there was a failure across the board to detect these activities.

Second, as it relates to the opposition amendments to the AML/CFT bill, APNU dawdled until near the very end before it presented them. It was almost as if it didn’t even believe in them. Had APNU had these amendments ready for presentation to Parliament and the public at the end of last year’s parliamentary recess, the government would have had less room to manoeuvre around them.  For the opposition, the road to the high ground isn’t only about exposing government failings; it is about deftness and dexterity in moving its agenda forward.

Third, given its poor governance record, unwillingness to negotiate in good faith and its penchant for breaking promises, the PPP/C government can hardly expect opposition support for a bill that is weak and doesn’t contain mechanisms which will assure that the amended law will be enforced. If the public was well educated about the role of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the control room so to speak of the AML law, then the public would be thoroughly disappointed by its performance. It has not assisted in a single prosecution of a launderer  and functioned for a long time with a skeleton staff. This lack of activity by the FIU no doubt reflected the unspoken disinterest by the Jagdeo administration in the interdiction of these crimes.

What the government will have to realize very quickly is that there is no confidence in the FIU and it cannot be business as usual. Not even some of the sectors that are to report to the FIU appear to take it seriously. There was not one report from the Guyana Revenue Authority of any suspicious transaction to the FIU for the years 2011 and 2012. Can this be believed? The FIU has to be reconstituted, a new director appointed and its supervision has to be taken out of the ambit of the government. This  is where the APNU amendments will come in to play. The FIU should be completely transformed and with that transformation there will hopefully be more vigour in prosecuting launderers.  The other APNU amendments should be addressed in so far as they improve the architecture of the bill. The government will again have a chance to show its good faith when the opposition amendments are returned to Parliament.

Fourth, given the several CFATF deadlines that have gone by and the pending  risk of review by FATF’s ICRG it is inadvisable for the bill to be held up pending discussion of other conditions such as the assenting to of bills that were passed with the opposition majority and the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission.  Perhaps, for this purpose the opposition can insist on a memorandum of understanding on these outstanding issues. It would be another means of testing the word of the government.

The time is nigh for the passing of this bill and the ending of the circus like the one the government put on at the International Conference Centre on Thursday. These are shambolic displays that demean governance and those who expect to be governed. The real work and hard-nosed negotiating has to be done in Parliament and the government had better try harder for a compromise in the coming days.