ATTORNEY-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, has confirmed that Alliance For Change (AFC) Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan was a no-show at last Thursday’s meeting of the Special Parliamentary Select Committee set up to deal urgently with Government’s amendments to Guyana’s Anti- Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act. Guyana faces a May 27 deadline to have the legislation enacted, or face international sanctions and a possible blacklisting.

In a brief interview with the Guyana Chronicle on Friday, Nandlall said the committee has met only twice since its inception, but the Government has placed utmost priority on those meetings, and would have ideally appreciated that the committee meets daily to deal with the Money Laundering legislation with a view to keeping the set deadline, but the opposition members have indicated that they cannot afford to meet on a daily basis.

Chaired by Government’s Chief Whip, Ms Gail Teixeira, the committee comprises APNU’s Basil Williams, Joseph Harmon, Deborah Backer and Carl Greenidge; besides Ministers Nandlall, Rohee, Dr Singh and the AFC’s Ramjattan.

The Attorney-General said that none of the objections thus far raised by the political opposition is substantive, and Government has also acquiesced to an opposition request for public stakeholders to have an input in the work of the committee. As such, advertisements were published in each of the daily newspapers inviting stakeholders to submit a memorandum of their contributions, but the Committee is yet to receive any such submissions from members of the public.    

When it was decided to have the matter referred to a special select committee, Nandlall had vehemently objected, saying that while such a route was commendable and was in fact an exercise that should be resorted to in order to provide for greater input, “unfortunately, on this occasion