Exactly one year ago, Guyana in an attempt to illustrate to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) that it was in compliance with most of the measures by which countries’ anti-money laundering actions are evaluated was told that the steps it had implemented were “minimal” and that it remained “in expedited follow-up” with another report due by November of last year.
Most of the amendments in the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Finance of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill No. 12 of 2013-introduced by Attorney-General Anil Nandlall on May 7- stem from the recommendations the CFATF would have made in its Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) on the issue of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AMLCFTA) in July 2011.
Some of the concerns and recommendations made in the task’s force report centred on the fact at the time that Guyana’s Financial Intelli-gence Unit (FIU) had only one staff member and the government was reluctant to have the unit give periodic reports that