Faced with a barrage of criticism over the current state of the Guyana Police Force, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today assured that the systems in place to detect and guard against corruption and money laundering are working.

In the past days, the Opposition has cranked up its calls for the Guyana Police Force to be completely overhauled amid widespread allegations of corruption at its very helm.

But while accusing the Opposition of having a long history of controlling the Police, Vice President Jagdeo today said it was the activation of the Anti-Money Laundering laws by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) that led to accounts linked to Assistant Police Commissioner Brutus being flagged.

“If you go to a bank, and you make a deposit that is above a threshold or the banker suspects that you are making a transfer that is of a suspicious nature, they have to file a suspicious transaction report with the FIU. This is what happened. It is not that they will refuse to take your money, they would take your money put it into your account and then they would file a suspicious transaction report with the FIU that this looks unusual. The FIU then does the investigation. The FIU, in this case, did the investigation, and sent the report to SOCU,” Vice President Jagdeo explained. 

He said SOCU, without any executive interference conducted an independent investigation and upon completion of that investigation, sent the file to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP). 

“The system worked,” he emphasized. 

According to Jagdeo, the Government had also received complaints against the Administration of the Police Force, which also raised a red flag. 

It was explained that in one case, a mechanic, who over a period of four years had repaired a total of 150 vehicles for the Force had not been paid, although the Government had budgeted money for the Police Force to clear its outstanding debt. 

“There are layers of safeguards and sometimes people can breach the safeguards and the laws, that is why you have audit reports, internal audit, then you have other departmental checks, etc. But ultimately one of the safeguards against corruption is SOCU and FIU, and so, if you bypass one layer, you get caught at another layer. It means the system is working. You may go unnoticed for a while but ultimately, the system will pick you up. And then also, GRA is part of that because if you have unusual growth in assets, these reports can get sent back to the other bodies to look at,” the Vice President explained. 

The Vice President said the country’s Anti-Money Laundering framework has been lauded by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) for the strict measures contained in the AML/CFT legislation. 

“We have just had a mutual evaluation by the CFATF and they have confirmed that the legislation, the institutional framework, the policy and the national strategy are consistent with international standards. That has just been confirmed. This is a major thing because you are evaluated based on international standards and based on comments from your peers. That just happened,” the Vice President explained.  

He also said the Government has demonstrated its commitment to holding everyone accountable regardless of their status in society.

Jagdeo said the Opposition has demonstrated a clear lack of knowledge of the legislative framework in place, and how it is operationalized, and has chosen to discredit the entire force based on the action of a few.   

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