Guyana in safe zone with anti-money laundering fight AG Chambers

GUYANA - Government has pointed to a US State Department report, published in March 2017, which highlights the progress made by Guyana with respect to its anti-money laundering fight. With regards to the AntiMoney Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) regime, the Ministry of Legal Affairs/Attorney General Chambers noted that it has satisfied the criteria set by the regulators, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)/ Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF).

This means that Guyana has exited all follow-up processes and sanctions it was subjected to by those bodies. “Our exiting the follow-up process was based on the high level commitment given by His Excellency, President David Arthur Granger, to the President to FATF, that his Government will work with the FATF and CFATF to implement the recommendations. Additionally, the President appointed the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Hon. Basil Williams S.C., M.P as prime contact for Guyana.” Prior to 2015, Guyana faced sanctions and blacklisting from the world’s regulators. Through agreed measures, countries have to pass tougher laws and introduce monitoring systems to ensure dirty monies are not used in the financial systems to back terrorism.

With regards to the US State Department Report, the AG Chambers noted that the report recognized that Guyana “remedied key and core deficiencies previously highlighted by the FATF and CFATF, and has established the requisite legal, regulatory and institutional framework required by both bodies, which culminated in us achieving the level of compliance necessary to exit the third round of Mutual Evaluation and consequentially entered the fourth-round mutual evaluation process”. Some of the areas of progress were the enactment and/ or amendments of several pieces of legislation by the Attorney General Chambers and Ministry of Legal Affairs (with effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions) relating to confiscation and provisional measures, financial institution secrecy, customer due diligence, financial transparency and beneficial ownership; reporting of suspicious transactions, targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing, establishment of an AML/CFT supervisory regime and an independent and functioning Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). (Kaieteurnews)