Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Basil Williams is now in possession of the draft legislation for the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU).
Williams during a press conference last Friday informed that he saw the draft legislation for the first time the day before. “It was sent to the ministry so I have it,” he said adding that he has not had the opportunity to go through the document which “is quite thick”.
Asked about a timeframe within which he was planning to look at it, Williams said that he really doesn’t have custody of matter. “That is for the Unit [which is] within the Ministry of the Presidency. I am just dealing with the legislation…in conjunction with a drafting consultant that they have with the SARU Unit.”
He said that as soon as his office is satisfied with the provisions and “that they convey exactly what is intended by the government then by all means we will move forward with the legislation for passage through the National Assembly.”
A meeting was held in January with a World Bank/United Nations team on the proposed legislation.
Following the meeting, Williams had said that consultations on the content of the legislation will be held. The discussions during the meeting focused on the vital piece of legislation that will empower SARU to request information through the courts.
“What we are trying to do is build from scratch an organisation designed to prevent the stealing of public assets now, and in the future as well as to capture and return some of the property that was stolen in the past, the recent past,” SARU head Dr Clive Thomas had told Stabroek News in an interview.
“So we have a two-fold obligation. To do that we need to establish the capacity to make that pursuit and that means building up our strength in many different [ways], organisational, legally, personnel, resources-wise, contacts overseas and all that sort of thing…it is an evolving global structure of which we are part that we are trying to build a net.”
Thomas stressed on the urgency of the introduction of this Bill which will transform the unit into an agency.
