HUNDREDS turned out to yesterday’s national consultation on the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.

Below is the full text of the stakeholder statement that was met by wide consensus at the end of the meeting:
“We the participants at this National Stakeholders’ meeting, view with great concern the refusal of the Opposition in the National Assembly to support the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill 2013.
“We the participants join the voices of thousands of Guyanese, and recently, the Heads of Government of CARICOM in calling for the passage of the AML/CFT Amendment Bill No 22.
“We noted that the Bill tabled in the National Assembly by the Government and which is languishing in a Special Select Committee over the last several months, has been examined and approved by the Caribbean Financial Action Task force (CFATF) as incorporating the recommendations of the CFATF to address certain identified strategic deficiencies which exist in Guyana’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism regime.
“We also note that Bill No. 22 has been examined and agreed to by the members of the Special Select Committee on February 9, 2014.
We are deeply concerned that if this Bill is not again passed and enacted with dispatch, Guyana shall be blacklisted with dire financial and economic consequences which will affect every single Guyanese and the economy of Guyana, as well as economic and financial activities in the Caribbean Region and will retard the regional integration process, as recently noted by the Heads at a CARICOM meeting in the St. Vincent and Grenadines.
“We call on the APNU to withdraw their new amendments to the AML/CFT Act and to support the Amended Bill No 22 as approved in the Committee.
We the participants at this National Stakeholders’ Consultation call upon the Joint Opposition in the National Assembly, to support the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill No 22/2013 tabled by the Government in the National Assembly, forthwith.”