IN light of the Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry’s (GBTI) refusal to provide the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) with documents requested to conduct an investigation into the US$500M Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) fraud case, Irish Financial Investigations advisor to SOCU, Sam Sittlington believes that the bank needs to act sensibly.

He said while he understands the bank’s position on the matter, that it is mandated to comply with banking confidentiality laws that govern the protection of information to third parties which concern account holders, the bank has an obligation to act differently in criminal cases.

“There is a legal argument in relation to this particular case but that does not prevent the bank from using common sense and doing what they ought to do under the obligations. They may have a point but it is something I don’t want to discuss,” said Sittlington.

Several former senior officials of the GRDB were charged as the probe into money transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars to a prominent Essequibo rice farmer intensifies. But as a result of the bank’s refusal to provide information requested by SOCU, the Unit approached the high court seeking Productive Orders.

Those orders were issued by the judge compelling GBTI to hand over all information requested by SOCU on the GRDB officials. The Financial Investigations expert said too that the problem is not unique to Guyana but can pose serious problems for Guyana. “This is a very serious problem for Guyana because this GBTI case has international press that has consequences on the Central Bank of Guyana because the FATF in its evaluations will mark Guyana down because of their non-cooperation, particularly in the financial structure.”
He continued: “I think sometimes, institutions read into things too deeply and put up barriers not to do something as opposed to doing something and being more positive.” He assured that with cooperation, money laundering, corruption and the financing of terrorism can be reduced. Moreover, he said that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has made new recommendations about banking procedures.

That he said would be of great assistance if banks are more robust in their due diligence and in reporting of suspicions of money laundering. Meanwhile, Sittlington said he will be reaching out to the banking sector once again to reiterate the importance of their cooperation to fighting money laundering and corruption. He said in the past he has held a seminar on money laundering, doing enhanced due diligence to ensure customers are who they say they are and the like. All banks participated he said.