Guyana’s Attorney General, Senior Counsel Anil Nandlall has told a United Nations Conference that fighting corruption in Guyana is a work in progress.

Mr. Nandlall made the statement while he addressed the 11^TH Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday.

Citing Guyana’s anti-corruption legislative framework and its membership in the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Egmont Group, and UNOC, the Attorney General said Guyana has accomplished much in its fight against corruption, but there is more work to be done.

“Guyana’s legislative and constitutional framework enshrine a robust regime of checks and balances which extracts from government, public officers and state agencies a high level of accountability, transparency and adherence to the rule of law, in the discharge of their functions. These include, an independent Auditor General’s office that audits the expenditure of public funds annually and presenting its report to Parliament; a statutory framework governing the receipt and expenditure of revenues generated from the petroleum sector with heavy broad based administrative and parliamentary oversight; a public procurement process with oversights that presides over the award of contracts funded by public funds; an independent judiciary and a free and critical press – all of which aggregate to form part of Guyana’s anti-corruption architecture,” he said.

Alluding to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, Minister Nandlall said the Convention rightly places heavy emphasis on the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism apparatus in individual member states.

In this regard, he said Guyana has successfully completed its 4th round of mutual evaluation by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, during which it won an award in a case study done during the assessment.

The case examined was that of Deputy Commissioner of Police Calvin Brutus who was slapped with over 300 criminal charges of corruption – the first of its kind in the Caribbean.

The global leaders also heard of the move by Guyana to accede to a request by the US to have Opposition Member of Parliament, Azruddin Mohamed and his father Nazar Mohamed extradited for alleged financial and cross-border crimes.

“As I speak, Guyana has acceded to an extradition request from the Government of the United States of America to surrender two fugitive offenders, one of whom is a member of Parliament, indicted in a 50 million US dollars gold smuggling and money laundering international conspiracy,” he reported.

Minister Nandlall said in keeping with recommendations emanating from the United Nations Convention against Corruption, Guyana has begun to put greater emphasis on the detention and forfeiture of assets that are proceeds of crime or whose acquisition are tainted by illicit activities.

President Irfaan Ali, he said, has already signaled his intention to establish an anti-corruption unit to augment Guyana’s war against corruption.

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