The Inter-governmental financial regulatory body, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has taken Guyana off of its monitoring process, the organisation’s website reported.
“The FATF recognized that Guyana had made significant progress in improving its regime to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and will therefore no longer be subject to the FATF’s monitoring process,” the FATF website read.
The announcement was made at the organisation’s recently concluded first plenary meeting of the plenary year, FATF-XXVIII, which was held in Paris, France from October 19th to the 21st, at which Attorney General Basil Williams represented Guyana.
A FATF team was here last month to assess Guyana’s implementation of recommendations, a crucial step in a years-long battle by the country to avoid international sanctions over its anti-money laundering framework.
Following that visit, a meeting was held at the AG Chambers, and Williams said that Guyana has satisfied all of the recommendations outlined in the FATF action plan and that the visit by the on-site team is the next stage of the process.
America’s Regional Review Group (ARRG) Assessor, Gonzalo Gonzalez de Lara; Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) Financial Advisor, Roger Hernandez and FATF’s Senior Policy Analyst, Kevin Vandergrift were the members of the delegation who met with Williams.
The Attorney General had told reporters that an on-site visit is necessary so that the team “could come and see whether we have introduced the FATF standards and that we are implementing the recommendations and that there is political commitment to sustain that”.
