FATF’s ruling no longer a factor in decision to go to general elections – Dr. Luncheon

“WHO wants to be running a blacklisted country?” questioned the Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon, on Friday, following which he restated the fact that the pronouncement from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was one of several factors that could have triggered the President’s decision to move to general elections.

The Head of State, Mr. Donald Ramotar, as recent as June, had indicated that his administration is not opposed to calling Local Government elections, but hinted that the commencement order for this process, as well as general elections, could be based on the impacts of FATF’s ruling.
The President had said: “I don’t know what will happen if the impact of this anti-money laundering bill hits home very, very hard on our economy and whether we might have to go back and have another mandate.”

“….I would prefer to go to Local Government Elections, but I cannot shut my eyes to the political reality that exists and make a bland promise that I would go to Local Government Elections tomorrow, as I would have done had we had the majority in the parliament at this point in time, and we would not have been in the position that we are in today.”
Fortunately, Guyana has managed to stave off blacklisting.
“Guyana has staved off blacklisting… Guyana has been provided with time to put its house in order and essentially to conclude its efforts to enact FATF compliant AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) legislation,” Dr. Luncheon said, on Friday during a news conference held yesterday at the Office of the President.

MANDATED
Coming out of FATF’s most recent plenary meeting, which ended on Friday, Guyana has been mandated to undertake a number of steps to address the shortcomings in the local AML/CFT framework.
Among these which were outlined in a statement by FATF are:
* Adequately criminalising money laundering and terrorist financing;
* Establishing and implementing adequate procedures for the confiscation of assets related to money laundering;
* Establishing and implementing an adequate legal framework for identifying, tracing and freezing terrorist assets;
* Establishing a fully operational and effectively functioning financial intelligence unit;
* Establishing effective measures for customer due diligence and enhancing financial transparency; Strengthening suspicious transaction reporting requirements; and
* Implementing an adequate supervisory framework.
According to the international watchdog, “Guyana made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to address its strategic AML/CFT deficiencies and Guyana will work on implementing its action plan to address these deficiencies.”
FATF has also stressed that Guyana must act with urgency to address the deficiencies in the local AML/CFT framework.

NO-CONFIDENCE MOTION
However, Guyanese may still be headed to the polls earlier than 2016, given a number of other factors, according to the HPS, including the Alliance for Change (AFC) sponsored no-confidence motion.
The first inkling the public had that the AFC planned moving a no-confidence motion against the Government was back in mid-June, when party Vice-Chairman, Mr. Moses Nagamootoo hinted at it.
He did so by way of an article published in the Stabroek News and headlined, “AFC considering no-confidence motion against Gov’t.” He, however, acknowledged that to do so would require the support of the main Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
The AFC’s position was strengthened on Tuesday, August 5, when APNU Leader Brigadier (rtd.), David Granger publicly confirmed that his party was fully behind the no-confidence motion.

(By Vanessa Narine)