The anti-money laundering sanctions
may begin
Yesterday was the deadline for the introduction of the anti-money laundering Bill. The various countries met in the Bahamas yesterday to decide on the way forward for the non-compliant countries, of which Guyana is one.
Guyana’s Attorney General Anil Nandlall is in the Bahamas and were he to act on the instructions from President Donald Ramotar, he would have been begging for an extension of the deadline. Of course, Guyana should have enacted the legislation since August 6. That did not happen but there were two other deadline dates. Guyana honoured none of them.
Lest the nation get the impression that the sanctions for non-compliance are now kicking in, people must realize that there were already certain measures in place to force Guyana to comply. For example in Guyana although the introduction of this feature was gradual and unnoticed, every client in a commercial bank must produce some form of identification to either deposit or to withdraw money.
No one is quite certain about the kinds of sanctions that would be applied to Guyana. Over the weekend, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh was at pains to explain that at the end of the forum in the Bahamas the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force would issue its findings against all those countries that have been found to be non-compliant.
Having done that, the countries would adopt their independent measures in their dealings with Guyana. Some may opt to pay increased attention from money coming out of Guyana and even money flowing into Guyana from within their coffers.
Guyanese importers may find that they would have to do additional paperwork to satisfy queries coming from the foreign bank that is requested to handle the transactions. In some cases the foreign banks and other financial institutions may conclude that the additional cost of the examination is not worth it and may opt to cease doing business with Guyana altogether.
Therein lies the problem that people do not want to address. With a population of less than a million souls the volume of business with the international is comparatively small. Things are such that many commercial institutions can ignore Guyana and suffer little or no effect on their business.
But this need not have happened and Guyana is now scrambling to repair any damage that may have been created. The view in some quarters is that Guyanese are not known to support terrorism so the government was in no hurry to see the legislation through. On the other hand the government was aware that Guyanese are people who access money from outside the traditional economic sources and that one day people would focus on this country.
For a very long time countries in Europe and North America have identified Guyana as a transshipment point for Drugs leaving South America. In some cases the money is left outside to facilitate the payment for imports. This is at least one of the cases of money laundering that the world is trying to stamp out. The major powers believe that the drug trade could be hurt if the money gleaned from the industry could be frozen and could become meaningless to the drug dealer. And indeed large sums have been seized from different corners of the world and now lie in some bond, but the flow of drugs is so great that the seizures barely make a ripple.
In the case of Guyana, if the money is seized or frozen the dealers are nowhere so rich so in the end something serious happens. Many of the killings in Guyana have been blamed on drug deals where the dealer has been forced to suffer loss. The developed countries know this.
Now that sanctions are threatened we are sure that we would see fewer bank transactions and more movement of cash in suitcases. But that apart, legitimate traders and importers stand to suffer. That is why the wider Guyanese community is blaming the government for being tardy over a three-year period when it had the proposed legislation languishing in some chambers.
