The government has no plans to include any opposition members on the national delegation that will meet the Americas Regional Review Group (ARRG) next week as part of the review of the country’s progress on meeting international anti-money laundering standards.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall told Stabroek News that the composition of the team was ultimately the government’s decision and he could not comment on whether any changes would be made to the current team that will meet the ARRG. The ARRG is a sub-grouping under the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which has ordered the review in the light of Guyana’s failure to enact the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) amendment bill, which remains stalled in the National Assembly.
Nandlall said that the team currently includes the heads of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Specialised Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) and the Governor of the Bank of Guyana and the FIU’s legal advisor, who will be in Miami, Florida on September 29 and September 30.
No member of the opposition was invited, he explained, because it was a government delegation that was being summoned to meet to discuss the non-legislative measures Guyana has undertaken to ensure compliance with the FATF.
“Secondly, the opposition members of the select committee have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, in my view, that they have no intention of ensuring Guyana complied with its international obligations in terms of implementing the recommendations of the CFATF and the FATF. It is evident in their rejection of a bill that captures those recommendations,” Nandlall stated.
He also said that the opposition members of the select committee that still has custody of the bill have refused to meet. “Their role [is] more obstructionist,” he charged.
Nandlall stated that the meeting in Miami was to “assess Guyana’s progress,” given the fact that it has not passed the bill.
He did not wish to speculate about the outcome of the special review and he said that the government would cross that bridge after.
The establishment of the FIU and the SOCU were two imperative non-legislative components of meeting full compliance with the FAFT’s standards.
However, the government has been criticised for not properly equipping the FIU to fulfil its mandate and dragging its feet on the establishment of the SOCU.
The SOCU only recently received Cabinet’s approval for the construction of its headquarters and the head of the unit was only sworn in in the first week of this month. The government had touted the unit’s importance since July of last year, when Cabinet approved the creation and operationalisation of the unit to investigate suspicious financial transactions.
Meanwhile, APNU MP and member of the special select committee Joseph Harmon said that the neither the committee nor the opposition was kept abreast of the Miami meeting. “I am not entirely sure what this meeting in Miami is all about,” he said, while adding that the government was sending a team that did not reflect the divergent views of the government and opposition on the bill. “Right now, there is no invitation for any members of the special select committee. We have not been invited so we cannot just go to something like this,” he explained.
He did note that the government’s relationship with international bodies needed to be inclusive of understanding the internal mechanisms within a country.
Harmon also pointed out that there were many other non-legislative parameters that needed to be dealt with other than the FIU and the SOCU. He said that many additional components of the non-legislative regulations had to be fine-tuned with the other necessary agencies and ministries.
The next meeting of the special select committee is slated for October 15, well after the targeted review.