…AG promises, as Guyana removed from FATF watch list

THE business community and even the man in the street can expect an ease in conducting local and international financial transactions, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Basil Williams said as he alluded to one of the many benefits to be derived from the country’s successful exit from the FATF/ICRG regime.
“It would be much better for Guyanese businesses, and Guyanese businessmen to do transactions around the world because Guyana has been cleared as a member of the international community, where business could be done, because it no longer poses a threat to international financial institutions,” Minister Williams told reporters on Wednesday at the Legal Affairs Ministry.

Executive Member of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Ramesh Dookhoo had also said that this new development would foster a better business climate.

“This is a major breakthrough for Guyana,” Dookhoo had told Guyana Chronicle, while noting that companies within the Private Sector will now be better positioned to conduct international transactions with ease.

The PSC Executive Member said too that although the country is still being monitored by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), the Private Sector is comforted by the fact that permission has been granted for Guyana to exit the FATF Review List.

In May 2014, the Caribbean Financial Task Force (CFATF) had handed over Guyana to the Financial Action Task Force due to the country’s then failure to meet the agreed timeliness in its Action Plan.

CFATF had identified Guyana as a jurisdiction with significant Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) and a risk to the international financial system; hence members were warned about doing business with Guyana.

“Members are therefore called upon to implement further counter measures to protect their financial systems from the ongoing money laundering and terrorist financing risks emanating from Guyana,” the statement which was published in May 2014 by CFATF read.

More than two years after, under a different Government, Guyana has successfully exited FATF’s International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) regime, and therefore the counter-measures are expected to be reversed.

This achievement, Minister Williams said, is a “collective victory.” “The high level political commitment of President David Granger, his drive and the leadership given by the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Basil Williams, and his Compliance Team and the contribution of the FIU under the helm of the Minister of Finance Mr. Winston Jordan were matched by the responsiveness of the Guyanese Financial Institutions, the Private Sector and law Enforcement Institutions,” he said.

During the FATF conference in Paris last Tuesday, Spain moved a motion to recommend that Guyana be removed from the Compliance Document. The motion was subsequently supported by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, France and Mexico. It was adopted two days after.

According to the Legal Affairs Minister, Guyana’s removal from FATF’s Compliance Document paves the way for a similar removal from CFATF’s monitoring process come November 2016. Exiting FATF was critical, he emphasised. “We expect also to exit there because we have already been cleared for exit, but couldn’t exit because of the FATF,” he explained.

Though the country has made significant progress in its fight to combat Money laundering and the financing of terrorism under the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government, it will have to ensure that persons in the business of money laundering, terrorist financing and theft of state assets are convicted, ahead of the Fourth Round of Mutual Evaluation.

“Guyana cannot be complacent as the fourth round Mutual Evaluation, beckons, where the test is whether we would have shown ‘sufficient progress on the effectiveness,’ for example, having more convictions for offences of money laundering, terrorist financing and the purloining of state assets,” the Attorney General said.

The collaborative work between the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) has landed a number of suspected money launderers before the Courts but no conviction has been made thus far. “You can’t tell them you charged a hundred people and you don’t have a conviction. Therefore…We have to start ensuring that the legal framework and regulatory framework that we put in this Third Round are effectively addressed in the Fourth Round,” he explained, while reiterating that convictions must be made by 2020.