ATTORNEY-GENERAL (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, met on June 11 with A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) Basil Williams on the issue of the Bills passed by the National Assembly, but not assented to, following an instruction by President Donald Ramotar.

And in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle he noted that much progress was not made during the meeting, the second of its kind, as it was an “emasculated” process.
“The meeting was held with a view of identifying the areas of contentions and take them back to our respective principals (leadership) who will explore the possibility of a resolution of those areas of contentions with the ultimate objective of having those Bills re-tabled in the National Assembly and passed with the Government’s support and eventually receiving Presidential assent,” Nandlall said.
Also, the meeting was another measure advanced by the Government intended to attract the support of the APNU for a compliant Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) (Amendment) Bill.
Nandlall said: “At the meeting of Wednesday, 11th of June, 2014, Mr. Williams informed me that he raised the matter with his principals (APNU leadership) and he was instructed that we were only to review the procedure in respect of how the Bills were to be returned to the National Assembly and whether and if the objectives of those Bills can be achieved by a process other than re-tabling the Bills in the National Assembly, for example, the promulgation of Regulations.
“He was emphatic that he had no mandate to discuss the content of any of the Bills in any manner whatsoever. Reluctantly, I agreed to this emasculated process and the same was concluded at that very meeting.”

FIRST MEETING UNSUCCESSFUL
According to the AG, the first meeting on June 9 did not meet much success either as Mr. Williams indicated that his instructions were simply “to meet with me to discuss the non-assented Bills.”
He said: “I presented to Mr. Williams a collection of all the Bills which would be the subject of our engagement and I explained to him what I understood from my principals, to be the nature, extent, scope and purpose of the said engagement.
“Mr. Williams informed me that he is not in receipt of similar instructions from his principals….immediately, I formed the view that this engagement would be futile unless and until we were both at ad-idem in respect of nature, extent, scope and purpose of the said engagement.”
Nandlall added that under these circumstances the first meeting was adjourned to June 11 which was the second meeting.
“In the circumstances (at the June 9 meeting), I suggested to Mr. Williams that a prudent course to adopt, at this stage, was for us to adjourn the meeting to permit him to receive full and proper instructions on the nature, extent, scope and purpose of the said engagement. He agreed and the meeting was adjourned for Wednesday the 11th of June, 2014,” the AG explained.
Nandlall reiterated that the purpose of the meeting was to jointly review the non-assented Bills, which were tabled and passed by the Opposition in the National Assembly, with a view of identifying the areas of contentions.
“The idea was to take them back to our respective principals who will explore the possibility of a resolution of those areas of contentions with the ultimate objective of having those Bills re-tabled in the National Assembly and passed with the Government’s support and eventually receiving Presidential assent,” he said.

IN VAIN
Additionally, the AG referenced the fact that meeting was rendered “illusory, or at least, irrelevant” given two other major developments, regarding APNU’s positions on their conditional support for the AML/CFT Bill.
He stated that these events were:
* APNU’s refusal to meet at the Select Committee despite several attempts by the Chairperson of the Select Committee; even though the Chairperson indicated an intention to narrow the gap between the Government’s position and the APNU proposals in respect AMLCFT Bill; and
* The refusal by the Leader of the Opposition to accept the President’s proposals to enact a Bill which contains all the APNU’s amendment, though, it exposes the Bill to the peril of subsequently being declared to be CFATF non-compliant.
The Bill, to meet the requirements the FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRB), the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), was tabled in the National Assembly in April 2013, but referred to a Parliamentary Special Select Committee and eventually voted down by the combined Opposition in November 2013. The Bill was re-tabled in December 2013, and again referred to the Parliamentary Special Select Committee, chaired by Ms. Gail Teixeira, where it has been since.
Government had repeated its willingness to have the Bill passed, and has demonstrated its commitment to same, but up to the last meeting of the Select Committee, remained locked in political gridlock with the combined Parliamentary Opposition.
Written By Vanessa Narine