–-Attorney-General
ATTORNEY-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr Anil Nandlall, is contending that the essence of Mr Yesu Persaud’s letter with regard to passage of the AML/CFT Bill has been lost on the Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Mr Khemraj Ramjattan.

Ramjattan, on Monday last, defended his Party’s demands in exchange for support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, which followed A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) comments that it remained unmoved by Persaud’s letter.

Persaud, one of Guyana’s international icons, entrepreneur and philanthropist, called on Friday for the passage of the Bill, and suggested that with regard to the proposed amendments by the APNU, compromises should be the focus of those at the negotiating table. Persaud also made four recommendations that addressed issues ranging from the appointment of a Money Laundering Authority or Board to cash seizures.

BEWILDERED
In Nandlall’s statement, issued yesterday on behalf of the Government of Guyana, he said that Government regards, with some bewilderment, the “unusually long but mostly irrelevant” letter from Ramjattan. The AG said, “We hope that Mr. Ramjattan’s irrelevant utterances and distortions will not contaminate the facts on this matter… The essence of Mr. Persaud’s letter was that our obligation to pass the said Bill stems from our international responsibilities, and that such matters are of national importance and in the national interest, and therefore should not be the subject of a political bargaining process, with politicians using the same to extract political demands from each other.

“In short (Persaud is asking) that a CFATF compliant Bill be enacted forthwith,” Minister Nandlall declared.

The minister said the message is simple and fundamental, but has seemingly been lost on the AFC Leader. He said, “He (Ramjattan) embarks upon a historical excursion commencing in 1998, a wholly irrelevant exercise and one of manufactured facts designed to convey the impression that the Government was guilty of delay in respect of Guyana’s international obligations to the CFATF. Assuming that his historical recitation was (the truth), what purpose it now serves to Guyana and its people will remain matters within Mr. Ramjattan’s peculiar knowledge.

“The undisputed fact is (that), until the Opposition controlled the National Assembly of Guyana, Guyana was never blacklisted or threatened with blacklisting, and the economy and the people of Guyana were never exposed to the perilous consequences associated with that delinquent status.

“Now that the Opposition controls a majority in the National Assembly, Mr. Ramjattan, his party and the APNU must take a bow for placing the nation and its people at this precarious precipice at which we are now perched. No amount of political or historical diatribe can discolour that reality.”

FACTS ARE CLEAR
Nandlall pointed out that the facts are clear, and the Government has always discharged its obligations in respect of CFATF within the requisite time frames. “The current position that we find ourselves in is purely the making of the joint opposition’s politicking, irresponsibility, blackmailing, and horse trading,” he said.

The current Bill, which is already CFATF compliant, was tabled in the National Assembly in April 2013.
The AG said: “The fact that it was not passed shortly thereafter is not the fault of the Government, but (of) the Opposition. In fact, the AFC’s consistent public position was that they have no problems with the bill. Well, if they have no problem with the bill, why is it that they never supported its passage in the National Assembly? That simple question Mr. Ramjattan can never answer honestly.

“Rather than support the bill, he preferred to engage in horse trading, demanding the Procurement Commission,” Nandlall said.

Nandlall underscored the fact that this position has “become worse”, with the AFC now demanding presidential assent of other bills, the amendments of APNU, local government elections, and establishment of the Integrity Commission. “He may next demand a bridge across the Essequibo River and snow in Berbice; one can never tell,” the AG posited.

The AG added that the AFC and the APNU transmitted the bill to a Select Committee, where it “languished” for six months without a single amendment being made. “Mr. Ramjattan rarely attended committee meetings. The APNU, on the other hand, although they claimed that they have amendments to make to the bill, never proffered any. Instead, they employed every dilatory strategy and procrastinating tactic available to delay the work of the Committee.

“At one point, they conjured an allegation that the President labelled them terrorists, and used that as a basis to boycott the Committee meetings. It was during this boycott that the Committee was able to conclude its work, and return the bill to the floor.

“Again, rather than support the bill that the AFC proclaimed ‘not to have problems with’, they joined with the APNU and defeated it,” the AG said.

He explained that the Opposition subsequently requested that the bill be returned to the National Assembly; and again, rather than support it, the bill was sent to a special select committee.

Nandlall said, “It was only at 9.00pm on February 9, and in the usual absence of Mr. Ramjattan, that the APNU presented to the Committee two pieces of paper chronicling their proposals for amendments. This came nearly one year after they said to the nation that they have amendments to make. These proposals were poorly written, and they collided with each other, though emanating from the same political party.

“Significantly, they were not amendments to the bill, as the APNU suggested, but they were (amendments) to the principal act.
So, after a year, no amendments really came forward in respect of the bill. These amendments had to be remodelled by the Chief Parliamentary Counsel into legislative language, and examined against the Constitution, the Bill, the principal Act, related legislation, and CFATF’s recommendations,” the AG disclosed.

The AG contends that this proved to be a time-consuming exercise. He added that Government’s counter proposals have already been outlined.
“The above recitation can easily be corroborated and verified by an examination of the Parliamentary records,” he stressed.

The nation has already been blacklisted regionally by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF). Last November, CFATF issued a warning to its member states to take necessary action to address the risks emanating from Guyana. This happened after the country had missed the November deadline for the passage of the Bill.

Guyana also missed the February 28 deadline this year, when it was due to submit a report to the regional body on the status of enactment of the bill. Since the bill has not been passed in the National Assembly, the country could only substantially report on the advances made with respect to the non-legislative recommendations made by CFATF.

Failure to pass the Bill is likely to result in international blacklisting for Guyana when the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) considers CFATF’s report at its meeting scheduled for May.
By Vanessa Narine