Opposition Leader to raise concerns with FATF/CFATF

AML/CFT Bill

…says AG should be sent to Privileges Committee for lying

With the recent passage of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill 2018, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has said that his party still has many concerns in relation to that legislation and would seek to raise them with the appropriate bodies.
As such, Jagdeo told reporters on Thursday during his weekly press conference that his office would seek to communicate these concerns to the Financial Action Task Force/Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (FATF/CFATF), which have overarching responsibility for this area.
“Our big concern here is we do not have an independent entity provided for by this

Act, to oversee the countering of terrorist financing or the proliferation of arms or weapons of mass destruction…because now you have a politician being conferred with an enormous authority,” the Opposition Leader explained.
He was referring to the Anti-Money Laundering Authority now being replaced by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation Financing (AML/CFT/PF) National Coordination Committee and headed by Attorney General Basil Williams.
Jagdeo said this move now undermined the technical authority that was there before, which gave the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) the authority to police the Act. Secondly, he reminded that the amended bill is also catering towards controlling budgets and it undermined the authority of the Court.
“Any independent external body examining the amendments that this coalition Government foisted on the nation, they will conclude that no longer is this authority independent. And no longer can you separate in a technical way, the right of money laundering from the political people,” he added.

Intrusive
In further describing the Government’s move as obscene, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary again raised concerns that the administration was seeking tax-free concessions. Moreover, Jagdeo said that having a purely political and partisan person would allow the Government to be intrusive into people’s bank accounts information.
He said, “And how he (Williams) he is political, partisan to the core….so now that person will have the records of all the people in Guyana. Their financial, transactional records, everything at his fingertips. This bothers me a lot and it must bother the business community.”
The former Head of State said he suspected that if the business community was to read and understand the changes that would come with the amendments to the bill, it could lead to an increase in capital flight or deter investments. He said that his party viewed this as very intrusive in people’s lives.
“We see this as a pattern where this Governments gets more and more into people’s lives; we have seen this with the Cyber Crime Bill, which, although there have been some amendments to the terrible provisions of the past, still leaves many questions unanswered,” Jagdeo further stated.

Blatant lie
In making to reference to the debate in Parliament before the passage of the amended bill, the Opposition Leader noted that the Government display was an example of duplicity at its worst. He recalled Williams defending the amendments and saying he was unaware of how the authority was included in the bill.
But Jagdeo recalled that the first act of the coalition Government in 2015 when the PPP did not attend the sittings, was amend the AML law to insert that same authority. “So, that was a blatant lie. And for someone to come to the National Assembly and say that he did not know this … it is an attempt to mislead the Assembly. And maybe he should be taken to the Committee of Privileges… [for] telling a blatant lie.”
The head of the Opposition said that his party would give serious consideration to the matter and once a decision was made, they could move to recommend that such a course of action be taken. Only recently, Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Harry Gill was sent to the same committee over open letters he wrote to editors at various media entities, criticising the Speaker’s alleged biased decisions in the House.
“They put in place the authority. In fact, prior to that they held up the amendment to the passage of this bill two times, because they argued that this expanded authority must be in place. They put Guyana at risk, they place it in law. Parliament met over a year and selected 10 persons to staff this authority and then Williams came back and said we don’t need this authority anymore,” he recalled.
Last week, the amended Bill was passed with Government using its majority, even though several worrying aspects of the Bill were highlighted by the Opposition. A major point of contention was the fact that the Attorney General, who has no expertise in the field of finance, will be heading it. (Samuel Sukhnandan)