PRESIDENTIAL advisor on Governance and Member of Parliament (MP) Ms Gail Teixeira was reappointed to chair the Parliamentary Select Committee reviewing the Anti-Money Laundering & Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill.

The Bill was returned to Special Select Committee following a vote by MPs on December 19, 2013. It had previously spent six months before a Special Select Committee before being defeated in the National Assembly by the joint opposition in early December.

WARNING
In a prior interview, Attorney General Anil Nandlall had uttered a caution to Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) about making changes to the bill at the level of the Committee. “We have to be careful with what we are titillating with. What is there is what CFTST wants, and any changes must be in those parameters (recommendations), or else we run the risk of the bill now being non-compliant with the recommendations which have already been made,” he had said.
The AG explained that the bill, re-tabled in the House last Thursday, is a product of extensive consultation with the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF). He acknowledged that CFATF issued an advisory on the need for changes in November 2011, but pointed out that, with elections in the air, work was deferred until after that event.
Nandlall said that after the advisory, CFATF officials visited Guyana; examined the local situation; met with the Government, private sector, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders; examined the legislative framework, and made their recommendations.
He added that the legislation to give effect to the recommendations was another process that took time. “Each provision was sent individually to CFATF, examined by their specialist, and confirmed to have complied with the recommendations,” the AG said. “It was a very time-consuming process.”
The AG said the recommendations could have been made effective by legislation crafted in a piecemeal manner, but the decision to leverage a more comprehensive approach had been taken because challenges had been foreseen with passage of the bill had a piecemeal approach been adopted.
He said: “It is a big bill, but it is a comprehensive one that embraces all the recommendations… It was a long process.”
When it was decided to have the bill returned to a Special Select Committee, Nandlall had requested passage of the bill within the next five weeks (before the end of January) to mitigate the adverse effects blacklisting by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) could have on Guyana, and to avoid further sanctions.
Since Guyana had missed the November 18 deadline by which the bill should have become CFATF compliant, CFATF, at its plenary meeting, warned its members to “consider implementing counter measures to their financial systems from the ongoing money laundering and terrorist financing risks” emanating from Guyana.
The French-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is expected to hold, in February, a review of cases wherein countries are not CFATF compliant. That review could include Guyana, following CFATF’s designation of Guyana as a country that has not made sufficient progress in addressing deficiencies in legislation that address anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism activities, and a country that has not complied with its Action Plan developed with CFATF to address these deficiencies.
CFATF itself is expected to review Guyana’s position in May 2014 at its next meeting. If Guyana is unable to meet that deadline, the body is expected to refer Guyana’s case to the Financial Action Task Force for the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) to begin evaluating.
The IMF’s pronouncement on the matter followed the end of a consultation with Guyana on December 9.