– Clinton Williams urges Parliament on AML/CFT bill
PRESIDENT of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA), Mr Clinton Williams, is urging Guyana’s Parliamentarians to “cease the dithering” over the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation and consider the effects of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) blacklisting the nation as a whole.

“It is now more apparent that our parliamentary parties are continuing to dither in the Select Committee over refining the Anti Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism legislation which is long overdue,” Williams said in a statement to the media last evening.

QUOTE: ‘The prognosis for this nation is grim once this parliamentary indecisiveness continues’

He noted that Guyana has already been blacklisted by CFATF but “Guyanese from every walk of life could be spared the harsher effects of ultimate blacklisting if only our parliamentarians would work with more alacrity to pass the amended Bill.”

The GMSA President said these amendments to the legislation accompany other agreements which have not been contested, yet they have not been properly constituted. The Financial Intelligence Unit is one such. The general population, the business community and civil society are yet to be assured that the non-contentious requirements in the CFAFT bill have been implemented and put to work, Williams argued.
He noted that CFATF requires that Guyana passes the stipulated legislation and implement all the outstanding requirements outlined in its Action Plan. These include mechanisms to fully criminalise money laundering and terrorist financing offences, and address all the requirements regarding beneficial ownership.
Guyana also has to strengthen its mechanisms for suspicious transaction reporting, for international co-operation, for freezing and confiscating terrorist assets, and fully implementing the United Nations conventions. Williams said while some efforts have been made to address these deficiencies, the CFATF is not satisfied that Guyana has taken sufficient steps to improve our compliance with the AML/CFT regime.
NON-COMPLIANT WARNING

“Members of the Parliamentary Select Committee need not be reminded that harsh penalties are in store for Guyana if/when the country is eventually classified by the international task force as Non-Compliant,”.
From all appearances, Williams said Guyana will again fail to meet the next CFAFT deadline.
“What they do need reminding of is that the average Guyanese will face the full impact of the penalties for a long time, impacts which promise to disrupt our lives and livelihoods,” the GMSA President warned.
He said the stigmatisation of Guyana and Guyanese will seep into every pore of this nation and contaminate our political, social and most of all, our economic well being. “It takes no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the 5 percent growth that Guyana’s economy has recorded in the past two years could very well be whittled away as the result of the crippling absence of a macro vision, this seeming inability to see the ‘big picture’,” Williams posited.
“The prognosis for this nation is grim once this parliamentary indecisiveness continues,” declared the GMSA President.

He said the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association is “again appealing to our legislators to consider the real consequences of their inaction on the people of Guyana, to find agreement on the few amendments to the CFAFT Action Plan, and most of all, to implement the support mechanisms needed to fight money laundering and financing of terrorism”.