Guyana being pressed to do more to tackle money laundering and financing of terrorism despite AML Bill passage

FATF believes Guyana needs to do more to identify, trace and freeze terrorist assets along with ensuring a fully functional and operational Financial Intelligence Unit.

Guyana being pressed to do more to tackle money laundering and financing of terrorism despite AML Bill passage

Despite the new government’s promptness in passing the amended Anti – Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has said that certain strategic deficiencies continue to plague Guyana.

FATF believes Guyana needs to do more to identify, trace and freeze terrorist assets along with ensuring a fully functional and operational Financial Intelligence Unit.

In a statement last week, the world body acknowledged that the APNU+AFC government, following its election to office in May, has taken steps toward improving its AML/CFT regime, including enacting the AML/CFT Amendment Act 2015.

However, FATF, in the statement dated October 23, determined that certain strategic deficiencies remain.

It called on Guyana to continue to implement its action plan, as part of its ongoing review of compliance with the AML/CFT standards.

This will include ensuring and implementing an adequate legal framework for identifying, tracing and freezing terrorist assets along with ensuring a fully operational and effectively functioning financial intelligence unit.

FATF also urged Guyana to establish effective measures for customer due diligence and enhancing financial transparency and implement an adequate supervisory framework.

In October 2014, Guyana made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to address its strategic AML/CFT deficiencies.

On 20 October, Attorney General Basil Williams attended a Meeting of the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Conference Centre in Paris France for the presentation of the report on the enactment of the AML/CFT Amendment Act 2015

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