…AG says Guyana has far way to go to exit CFATF 4th Round

ATTORNEY General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams has acknowledged that Guyana has a “far way to go” if it is to exit the 4th Round Mutual Evaluation under the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regime.

Williams made the comments when he addressed the opening at the recently concluded Plenary of the financial watchdog body held in Trinidad and Tobago. In a statement recently, the Financial Intelligence Unit said that Guyana’s evaluation under CFATF Third Round of Mutual Evaluation process revealed that it was rated as Partially Compliant (PC) and Non-Compliant (NC) in all sixteen of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Key and Core Recommendations which resulted in it being required to undertake various corrective measures, one of which was the appointment of Supervisory Authorities for all reporting entities. As such, in preparation for its Fourth Round of Mutual Evaluation, Guyana must have in place a robust regulatory and supervisory framework for all the reporting sectors.
According to the FIU, the implementation process therefore requires ensuring that all reporting entities under the AML/CFT Act of 2009, comply with sections 15, 16, 18, 19 and 20 of the said Act. These provisions relate, among other things, to the conducting of customer due diligence, record keeping and maintenance, submitting suspicious and other reports to the FIU and appointment of a Compliance Officer.

To this end, the FIU said it has conducted several training sessions with most of the categories of reporting entities, which provided information on their obligations under the AML/CFT Act, including training on reporting formats for submission of the required reports to the FIU. Guidelines on suspicious, terrorist property reports and Reporting Entity’s Compliance Regime were also published and made available on the aforementioned website. To date, the FIU said most of the reporting entities have made some progress in developing their AML/CFT regimes, in terms of appointing compliance officers, conducting customer due diligence and consistently submitting large cash, terrorist property and suspicious reports to the FIU.
Meanwhile, the AG in his address to the plenary thanked the co-chairs for their complementary remarks on the efforts he made since his short assumption to the post of deputy chair of CFATF. CFATF is chaired by Attorney General of Turks and Caicos, Rhondalee Braithwaite Knowles. She had replaced Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, Faris Al Rawi.

Williams in his remarks also made reference to the fact that he assumed the position of deputy chair of CFATF, in like manner as the AG of Trinidad and Tobago. His assumption to this post came very shortly after the new APNU+AFC administration took office.
Williams told the plenary, at the time when he took office Guyana’s AML/CFT regime was faced with tremendous challenges which included its failure to satisfy the FATF & CFATF requirements, based on the number of deficiencies identified in the country’s mutual evaluation report.

“Due to this situation, Guyana was faced with the negative consequences of possible de-risking and required to work assiduously to improve its AML/CFT framework,” Williams told the body attended by attorneys general of several Caribbean countries.
The AG explained that at the level of the Guyana Government –a high level commitment was made by His Excellency President David Granger to support fully the efforts of the FATF and CFATF requirements to ensure that the financial system, locally and internationally is free from money laundering and terrorist financing. He further alluded to the fact that Guyana was required to pass a number of key legislation and ensure that the institutional framework was in place to implement the AML/CFT Act.
“Having put those legal and administration mechanisms in place, Guyana successfully exited both the FATF and CFATF processes and consequentially exited the 3rd Round of Mutual Evaluation.” He said too, having been appointed to deputy chair and taking up the chair for the next plenary he is paying keen attention to those that precede him in those offices and looks forward to facilitating a successful plenary come November 2017-in Guyana. Williams said too that in recognition globally of the complexity of the 4th Round Mutual Evaluations, and in order to achieve the level of compliance set by the CFATF, Guyana has established a Compliance Team to ensure that the country is adequately prepared for the 4th Round and its challenges.