Press Release
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA) — The plenary members of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday accepted the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s (CFATF) proposal that Guyana and others be reviewed subsequent to the latter’s next plenary decision in May.
Guyana has to file a report with CFATF by February 28, 2014, for its review and report to plenary members in May 2014. This report will include Guyana’s plan of action to correct its deficiencies as part of the ongoing process.
Guyana is expected to attach to that report the conclusions on the AMLCFT Amendment Bill No. 22, 2013, which is before a Parliamentary Special Select Committee and a copy of the enacted Bill to be analysed, correlated to the deficiencies to provide the report to Plenary in May, 2014, a government statement issued on Friday said.
Between February and May it is expected that there will be dialogue and discussions with CFATF with regard to the preparation of the report for CFATF Plenary.
President Donald Ramotar said that he was deeply disturbed by the opposition’s continued stance on the bill, noting their “unpatriotic manner” compared to that of Belize, where the opposition joined with the government in passing six pieces of legislation in order to meet CFTAF’s demand, in spite of the fact “they do not like the bill”.
“Here we see for ten months this bill was in the Parliament and the opposition claimed they wanted it to go to the select committee because they have extensive changes to make. They did not make a single amendment to the bill that was before them but at 9 o’ clock on Sunday night they made proposals to amend the main act which is not before them,” the president noted.
He pointed out, “What they are doing is not right; it violates parliamentary democracy, because what they want to amend is not the bill that is before them, but the Act that was passed unanimously in parliament in 2009.”
The head of state reminded that the bill came about after the international community decided as far as possible all the countries should have one type of legislation so that criminals who launder money would not have loopholes.