The Attorney General‘s (AG’s) Chambers yesterday said that the lack of resources cited by a CFATF team referred only to the Treaty Office in the Ministry of Home Affairs and not the general money laundering fight.
In a statement, the AG’s Chambers was referring to a report in yesterday’s Stabroek News headlined `CFATF assessment finds unified approach, resources to tackle money laundering lacking in Guyana’.
The statement noted that the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) on September 15, 2023 concluded its two-week on-site assessment of Guyana’s Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism/Countering Proliferation Financing (AML/CFT/CPF) framework as part of the country’s international compliance obligations under the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Standards and Methodology.
At the conclusion of the exercise, mission leader of the Assessment Team, Avelon Perry, Financial Advisor of the CFATF presented a summary of the team’s initial high-level findings to the National Coordinating Committee (NCC).
In their report, the AG’s Chambers statement said that the assessors lauded Guyana’s effort at identifying and mitigating money laundering/terrorism financing activities and highlighted policy decisions, including the enactment of pivotal legislation which has enabled the country to do so.
They also mentioned shortcomings within the country’s AML/CFT/CPF architecture, one of which is a need for increased resources for the Treaty Office within the Ministry of Home Affairs to effectively perform its functions, noting however, that the country has demonstrated the ability to use formal and informal mechanisms for international cooperation.
Nowhere in the report is there a finding that there is a lack of “resources to tackle money laundering in Guyana”, the statement said.
“It would appear, therefore, that the singular observation by the assessors of a need for increased resources for the Treaty Office within the Ministry of Home Affairs was ingeniously used to convey the impression that there is a lack of resources across the national AML/CFT spectrum. This constitutes a gross misrepresentation of the assessors’ finding which we take the opportunity to swiftly reject”, the AG’s Chambers statement said.
It noted that during the on-site evaluation, the Assessment Team interviewed various ministers, officials, and heads of agencies including from the Attorney General’s Chambers and the Ministry of Legal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Judiciary, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the Commissioner of Police and others. These organisations combined, among others, and their representatives form the country’s AML/CFT/CPF structure, the statement noted.
“Professionals from public and private agencies and entities have worked tirelessly to ensure Guyana left no stone unturned so as to meet the expectations of international observers and regulators. In these regards, conscious of the effort placed into preparing for the on-site evaluation, the Guyana delegation found the preliminary findings of the Assessment Team to be favourable”, the statement said.
The statement added that the headline of the Stabroek News report on its own sends a very inaccurate perception of the general findings of the review and to some degree the report itself.
The statement highlight that the CFATF has thus far shared preliminary findings and the report will now go through updates and reviews over the next few months. The final report of Guyana’s Mutual Evaluation will be completed and approved at the CFATF Plenary scheduled for Trinidad and Tobago in May of 2024.
