Dear Editor,
PLEASE allow me a few column inches in your newspaper to address a matter that unfortunately continues to rear its head because of the desperation of those working with and alongside US sanctioned businessman Azruddin Mohamed of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party.

The WIN party recently published correspondence showing that a query was made, no doubt at the request of the party’s leadership and candidates, to the US Treasury Department’s OFAC to ask for clarification on three issues as outlined below:

Issue One: Whether OFAC sanctions extend to the Guyanese on WIN’s List of Candidates.
Issue Two: Whether OFAC sanctions affect local banks.

Issue Three: Whether OFAC sanctions would apply to Guyanese banks that do business with Azruddin Mohamed since no US citizen is involved and the US financial system is not being used.
Before dealing with the published reply from OFAC, it is important to note that the agency has a disclaimer featured prominently at the top of its acknowledgement document to WIN saying in effect:

Guidance from the OFAC Compliance Hotline is not for general use. It is only for guidance to whoever asks the question. The guidance provided by OFAC will only be given within the confines of the information shared with OFAC in the question. The guidance from OFAC “does not excuse compliance with any law or regulation administered by OFAC or another agency” nor “release the recipient [of sanctions – my emphasis] or any third party from civil or criminal liability for violation of any law or regulation.” And lastly, the guidance from OFAC does not “constitute a finding of fact or conclusion of law with respect to the applicability or interpretation of any law or regulation.”
OFAC responded to WIN’s queries saying:

For Issue One: Yes, a Guyanese could be sanctioned for certain activities with Azruddin Mohamed if that person provides material support to Azruddin Mohamed.
For Issues Two and Three: OFAC did not respond to the direct link between itself and Guyanese banks. It instead focused on how US banks would be handled and confirmed that– Yes, US

financial institutions could face sanctions for carrying out transactions that either involve the accounts of Azruddin Mohamed or if the transactions could benefit Azruddin Mohamed.
The response to Issues Two and Three by OFAC is of great importance because it now leaves room for the big question on how it is, then, that a local bank could find itself caught in the mix?
The answer– which has been repeated over and over again– is that local banks have agreements with US banks which support them as “correspondent banks” that provide a number of services to Guyana-based banks without Guyanese banks having to set up shop in the United States.

To lose a correspondent bank relationship would be to stunt the growth of the local bank as a financial institution, especially for major investments.
But why do we care that Azruddin Mohamed is associated with these people? The answer is that Azruddin Mohamed can’t do business through the banks. But when Mohamed himself has said publicly that his [sanctioned] money will be used to fund his political party, how then can the banks ensure that sanctioned money isn’t flowing through the accounts of other account holders to the benefit of Azruddin Mohamed?

If those banks did not act as they already did, one would imagine that they might have to take on the heavy administrative burden of increased monitoring of the accounts of Azruddin’s associates to ensure that (in keeping with OFAC’s answer to the question raised by Issue Two) Azruddin’s sanctioned money isn’t going out through the accounts of his party candidates who were all named in a legally-binding process by WIN in the List of Candidates submitted to GECOM which has now been gazetted.

No bank should be made to fetch the burden of that level of policing to ensure the integrity of its own system. Guyanese banks (if doing business with Azruddin Mohamed or any of his named associates from the political party he publicly admitted he is financing) have to do the right thing to protect their assets, the assets of other account holders, and its general operations.
But there’s another element in the mix that is being conveniently left out by the people who don’t want to believe that the local banks acted properly, and it’s that the anti-money laundering system still has to be taken into consideration.

Azruddin Mohamed is a sanctioned person. Azruddin Mohamed submitted a List of Candidates to GECOM of people who could hold public office upon extraction at his request if he were ever to be successful in his bid.

These persons are all now recognised as “politically exposed persons” who enter the race no doubt with the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) and the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) taking copious notes.

Banks are bound by a code of customer privacy and so would never outline these internal considerations. It is important to note that it was the WIN candidates themselves who told the public their accounts were being closed, not the banks.

These precautionary measures by institutions that handle money are not new. These are the systems in operation. Recall that just a few years ago in 2021, Aubrey Norton couldn’t even receive US$500 (about GY$100,000) through MoneyGram because the headquarters would’ve had to give the approval first.

That is how rigid the global financial system is. Local banks are right to protect themselves from fetching the high administrative burden of, and possibly being penalised for association with the gazetted associates of a man accused of US$50 million tax evasion, among other things.
Sincerely,
DM Wills