Speeches in the National Assembly

Mr. Greenidge: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wish to concur with both yourself and the Attorney General that this is a very serious matter which is before us and it merits careful attention. I wish to say, however, by way of opening comment that I am heartened that the Minister now appreciates the necessity for this bill to be taken back to the Select Committee from which it never should have been moved in the first instance because in the course of discussion in that meeting, as I had indicated before to this House, it had been agreed that a process which would take at least another two to three meetings over a period of two weeks or more should have been pursued and that would have allowed stakeholders, including the Guyana Law Society, to not only have their submissions considered but to have the Bar Association to have their recommendations delivered orally and that agreement was not respected. Instead the PPP Members of the Committee attempted the jump the Committee and bring the bill straight here. I hope that a lesson would have been learned from that. That is the first point. In that regard, nothing whatsoever has changed. That process has to be completed. Nothing but nothing has changed.
The second point I would like to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I have heard the Minister regarding the impact of not having passed the legislation yet and I wish to say that I regard the opening comments of that presentation as simply scare mongering. The question of diminution of remittances is a phenomenon being experienced in very many countries, including countries in the Caribbean, and it is not unrelated to the recession in the countries from which monies are remitted to places such as the Caribbean so let us not try to frighten the public by suggesting to them that some action taken in this House has led to that situation. I think that it is also noteworthy that as regards the situation on the Anti-Money Laundering Bill that there are other countries being processed and examined by the CFATF and its sister regional agencies and if one looks at them one will realise the extent to which these processes sometimes fail to strike some sense of balance.
We are, for example, in company which includes Pakistan. Certainly, in the context of money laundering and antiterrorism, there is no sense, not even in its worst days, could the current administration and the people of Guyana be cast in the same mould, in terms of dealing with antiterrorism and anti-money laundering. In fact, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) report of 2011 pointed to the fact that neither it nor the authorities, as it termed them, had any concerns, in terms of the current arrangement for dealing with, for example, antiterrorisms. We must not be frightened or the speakers on the other side must not try to frogmarch us into something for which they hope we would be hurried into making decisions without looking at these things properly. It is in that context that the observations by the distinguished Attorney General concerning the examination of the existing Bill by CFATF and the claim that if anything is to be changed apocalypse will follow.
This is an entity, this Parliament, that is independent of CFATF and we have responsibilities to carry out to our stakeholder. It is not to be told by a Minister that legislation has already been approved by an external authority and therefore we do not have any scope to change it.
Let me just remind our colleagues that it is also the case that the CFATF report is one that needs to, and we have said this before, take more... It may well be a modelled legislation which has been found useful elsewhere, but as regards Guyana the legislation has to be applied within a jurisdiction that is rather different from any of those, certainly, quite different from Barbados, Jamaica and elsewhere. The context for which this legislation is to be implemented is one in which there is fairly extensively demonstrated lack of will for implementation, problems of criminalisation and the problems of abuse of power and in those circumstances a model that may strike the CFATF technicians as being adequate elsewhere will not necessarily work here.
Let me, for a minute, Mr. Speaker, refer you to some of the comments as regards the report that CFATF produced on Guyana because sometimes we are being, I think, and I did use the word, “frogmarched” in circumstances that are not always very clear. In many ways what is known to us is surely known to CFATF, that legislation passed in the year 2000 has not been implemented in any meaningful way. The legislation passed in the year 2000 did make provision for confiscation of assets. The distinguished Attorney General made reference to that and as though this is something new and the legislation suddenly is to make provision from that.
The report, paragraph 63, for example, points to the fact:
“There is no requirement under the AML/CFTA for conviction of a serious offence in order to prove that property is the proceeds of crime.”
It is section 3(4).
“However, there has been no money laundering prosecutions or convictions where there was no predicate offence. The authorities are of the view that the legislation allows for conviction in such circumstances.”
In other words, they are not pointing here to an inadequacy of the legislation as it exists now but they are pointing to a failure to enforce legislation that is in place. If CFATF is of an inclination to look at legislation and say that it is inadequate and it should be strengthened...  There are 107 clauses in the current legislation, they want another 17 changed and they require that as a priority then it surely must follow, very quickly, as night follows day, that they will come back to us very soon about the failure to enforce because it is a bigger problem than the existence or the lack of existence of legislation.
Let me say also that it says in paragraph 75 that Guyana’s legal framework for combating money laundering is robust. These are the words of CFATF and the public must understand this because the Minister tries to give the impression to the public that there is something else going on.
Paragraph 75:
“Guyana’s legal framework for combating money laundering is robust. It has been significantly strengthened by the passage of the AML/CFTA in November 2009. Additionally, at the time of the mutual evaluation, the main agency responsible for the investigations of ML/TF offences was the FIU which only had one member of staff. Given the other functions of the FIU, this would severely limit the ability to carry on ML/TF investigations”.
What is being said here? On the one hand the Attorney General is telling us that we have picked up a model with a structure that is replicated throughout the world. I am positive that no model of this kind has been manned in this way. In other words, there is a structure largely empty with one officer at the time that when it has been examined and even now with the very limited number of persons. It cannot be argued that that is a model replicated elsewhere. This is the main enforcement agency...
Mr. Nandlall: Mr. Speaker, I rise to try to correct my friend who is misquoting me. I spoke of an administrative structure. I was not speaking about staffing complement for that structure. It is a structure setup... He made a point about inadequate staff. I never spoke about staffing. I was speaking about an administrative structure.
Mr. Greenidge: As the English would say that intervention speaks volumes. It is hope that you confused the public by playing with words.
Yes, you have a structure that makes provision for certain categories of staff and certain numbers and all of those boxes are emptied. Yes, it is a structure, an organogram which has relations... [Interruption by Mr. Nandlall]. Mr. Speaker, can I finish or are we into a dark...?  [Mr. Nandlall: Why are you speaking to me?]    Why do you not take the floor and explain if you need to?
Mr. Speaker: Continue Mr. Greenidge, please.
Mr. Greenidge: We are saying therefore that the report by the CFATF itself does not lend support to the claims of the Minister as regards the status of the bodies. As regards the legislation and the CFATF report, there are a large number of bodies that are responsible for ensuring enforcement. If I list those bodies then you will understand why it is that there is the big gap between legislation, even as it exists, and enforcement. The problem does not start and stop with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
Amongst the entities, the report  confirms, as having a role and responsible for implementation are the Ministry of Finance, the office of the Attorney General -  we need not go any further than that - the Guyana Police Force. The daily problems of the police force, the lack of capacity in terms of financial analytical ability is evident. The report itself cannot point to who within the police force will be carrying out these functions. In so far as, it has identified one entity, the question is whether it has any training, if there is any office which is capable of carrying out this work. In addition to the Guyana Police Force, there are the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Bank of Guyana, the Commissioner of Insurance, the Guyana Securities Council, Chief Cooperative Development Officer – mentioned by the Minister not so long ago – the Guyana Revenue Authority, and so forth.
All of us know, from looking each day of the newspapers, that these are entities, some of which are deliberately starved of resources by the administration, especially when some of their best officers see it fit, perhaps, to criticise or not to embrace things said by the Government. They are weak. If there is to be a closing of the gap between the legislation and enforcement these matters have to be addressed. It is not a matter of coming here and giving us fancy and empty words about what is structured and what is going on elsewhere. Elsewhere, there are effective bodies. In Barbados, in Jamaica and any of the territories, which is care to mention, they have effective bodies and in most instances far more effective than those that we have here. In fact, what makes these entities here even more ineffective is the intervention of the Government. In many instances the activities associated with money laundering and also financing of terrorism are very widespread. They are being increasingly widened with the development of capacity on the digital front. In so far as that is taking place then we need to ensure that our capacities are also strengthened.
May I just make sure that the point I am making is clear, that the wide ranges of activities are associated with money laundering and the question of terrorism. In Guyana, a number of those activities - smuggling of fuel, smuggling of gold and related areas - are activities that when the police and the properly authorised entities intercept or interdict agents or persons carrying out these activities. There have been instances when their releases have been ordered. In such circumstances, to draw parallels between ourselves and territories in the region is really quite laughable because we are ourselves, the government itself, undermining the capacity of its executing agencies to carry out the work and the functions set out in this legislation.
I am putting it to the House that inordinate and inappropriate emphasis is being given to the role and importance of legislation. I, for example, utterly reject the interpretation of the Attorney General to the effect that 98% of the requirements, which we have, has to be with legislation. It is absurd. Most of it has to do with execution and that is the point I am making.
Mr. Speaker, let me point you to a report earlier in the year in connection with this question of implementation or execution or enforcement, call it what you will. On March 14, the United States of America (USA) in the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said that Guyana was not enforcing a number of laws to counter money laundering and drug trafficking and yet the USA is part of this group that seeks to be pressuring us to implement the legislation and it was saying that in this very year. Sometimes I wonder whether a country, which is so advanced and so well organised, at times, has a failure of communication within its administration.
On the one hand, it was saying that Guyana was not enforcing a number of laws to counter money laundering and drug trafficking and the newspapers reported that the Minister responsible for this area... I am going to tell you before hand and before we get to a question of whether or not the Minister is admitting, having said it. Demerara Waves of the 14th March at 16.34 had a report quoting the Minister. Minister Rohee then explained:
“The laws would be confined to gathering intelligence until money laundering legislation is improved and the financial intelligence unit is strengthened.”
He goes on to say:
“Nothing is stopping the Government. It is just that these things take time.”
What are we being told here? We are being told that the legislation and we are being told by both by the Government and CFATF that the legislation is adequate but the Minister is now telling us, yes, the legislation is adequate but we are using the legislation not to enforce anything but to bug people’s phones and check on their communications. That is what is being said here. The President was asked why the laws are not being used and he added that we got to use them then. That is the report in Demerara Waves. We are being told that if we do not jump, seriously, to put this legislation in place apocalypse is going to follow when, in fact, this is what the Minister responsible is doing with the legislation that is available to him, using it for purposes that, I think, many of us find obnoxious at the best of times, rather than enforcing legislation.
It would have been interesting for the Minister, the Attorney General, to tell us what it is that he told CFATF because CFATF itself must know, as I said, that other people read its reports and if other people read its reports then there is the need to be some consistency in the way that it formulates its recommendations. It cannot, on the one hand, be saying that in the issue of antiterrorism financing and in the issue of money laundering we do not think that that is a massive problem and on the other hand saying that unless these things are strengthened  it is  going to encourage other countries to take action against Guyana.
The inadequacies of the current legislation as identified in the report...It may be useful, perhaps for the purposes of colleagues, just to mention some of these. I see that in the summary it has   that  list, and I will not attempt to quote these, but just to say to you that  it speaks to offences of illicit trafficking in stolen and other drugs and smuggling  are not criminalised. That is one area where improvements can be had.
Terrorist financing has been criminalised, in section 68 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act (AMLCFTA), but  it  states that the definition of property does not include assets of every kind, whether tangible or intangible, legal documents or instruments in any form, including electronic or digital evidencing title to or interest in assets of every kind. There is no provision for terrorist financing to extend to funds from legitimate or illegitimate sources or to apply, regardless of whether persons alleged to have committed the offences is in the same country or in a different one from where the terrorist or terrorist organisation is located or the terrorist’s act will occur.
I mentioned this one - it is not meant to be comprehensive - so that people could understand the implications of some of these, especially as regards the antiterrorism dimension. Remind the Members, that the actions of the US Government under President Bush, and even now the activities of the  National Security Agency (NSA), and in the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Blair have caused alarm about the rolling back of civil rights, on the part of the Government, under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
We live in a country where, ever so often, especially before elections, people can find themselves rounded up, locked up, and be held in prison for years without being convicted. We do not have any responsibility to put more powers in the hands of such a Government that could find our political stances inconvenient and therefore expand the room and the arrangements for political criminals. We have already had experiences with the...
Ms. Teixeira: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member made a very sweeping comment.  It is either he gives some idea of where he got that from or what it is reference to, but it is absolutely incorrect.
Mr. Speaker: Which comment is that?
Ms. Teixeira: I heard him say it. He was not heckled. We are very quietly listening to Mr. Greenidge.
Mr. Speaker: What I can speak and attest to is that there seems to be, during or just before elections, campaigns where...Young men would come to me and say Mr. Trotman we were liming on the corner last Saturday and the police  just arrived and locked  us up. I know that that is a practice that takes place. As to whether or not it has political basis, I have no evidence of that, but I know that I have encountered it on many occasions, personally, as a lawyer. I do not know if that is the particular statement that you need clarification on, but I can tell you I am quite aware of it.
Mr. Greenidge: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether it is necessary for me to even say anything further on that, but I do recall, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, the names of Munroe and Wharton cropping up, very recently, as persons who have never been prosecuted but spent a long time in jail. One of them was a woman. I do not know where it is that our colleague wants me to go.
The other aspects raised by the CFATF is that the FIU has the authority to investigate matters relating to money laundering but there are minimal security arrangements for custody of information with the main vulnerability being the Information Technology (IT) support provided by personnel not in the employ of FIU and no guidelines regarding the manner of STR reporting have been issued to financial institutions or other reporting entities. The FIU could publish reports with statistics, typologies and trends on suspicious transfers to the examiners. It is the view of the examiners that the deficient operations of the FIU has been significantly affected by the lack of resources – a point I made earlier.
“Re: The police and FIU, there are no written provisions for the taking of witness statements for use in investigations and prosecutions.”
Mr. Speaker: Are you referring to the same US...
Mr. Greenidge: It is exactly the same report I mentioned. It is the same section that I am quoting.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Greenidge mentioned the report of March of this year, the US Drug Control Strategy Report. That is what I understand him to be reading from.
Mr. Greenidge: No Mr. Speaker, this particular one, I said, is CFATF itself...
Mr. Speaker: Yes. I am sorry.
Mr. Greenidge: ...and as regards the penalties for making false declarations, it does not extend it to legal persons, and so forth. There are clearly a number of specific things...
Mr. Nandlall: Sir, we corrected some of those things. The whole purpose of this...
Mr. Speaker: No Mr. Nandlall. For you to just walk in and, before you take your seat, interrupt a debate, I do not think that I can allow that. The point is not whether they were corrected. The point is that the Member is quoting from a report.
Mr. Nandlall: All that I am saying, Sir, is that...
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Nandlall, I would not allow that. Mr. Greenidge please proceed.
Mr. Greenidge: Mr. Speaker, the Clerk might be advised, next time, to monitor more carefully the access to some of the libations that are available in the room next door.
In our view there is little wrong with the current legislation and we believe that CFATF has placed inordinate emphasis on the question of the new legislation. The point I was making is that if 2011 report is looked, where the performance of Guyana was last reviewed, it will be seen that I am right in questioning this emphasis.
Notwithstanding that, we are prepared, and we have been prepared, to go along with a review of the legislation that the CFATF has proposed. We have been attending the meetings along with the Government and the AFC and have said that, as regards the outcome of the work of the Committee, we would expect that attention would be paid to decisions we took within the meeting. The decision, first of all, to allow for the stakeholders to make oral and written provisions. We have before us, which have not been considered, recommendations from the University, for example, the Director of the Institute of Development Studies as well as of the Bar Association. We have also drawn to the attention of the meeting that we want to look at sections 9(3) (a), 22 (1) and (d) which also pertains to the Principal Act. Until such time that that is done - I do not mind how much heckling comes from the other side - it will not command the support of this side of the House.
Those amendments, I mentioned, are intended to deal with issues pertaining to the question of governance and the governance of the system. There are elements such as the arrangement for governance. Although there is a system in which the heads of all institutions, I mentioned, as being important in enforcement, are all appointed by the President or by one of the President’s Ministers, in essence they are appointed by the President. In the light of that, it is of concern to us, that there is a President who already appoints Chancellor of the Judiciary, Chief Justice, the judges, Commissioner of Police, Director of Public Prosecutions and he still wants to appoint the head of the FIU. This is supposed to be a body reviewing and giving instructions as regards the enforcement of money laundering legislation. There is an obsession with control and that is the problem and we are saying that it is not consistent with good governance. As far as the deadline is concerned,...  [Mr. Nandlall: The Prime Minister or the President appoints.]   Yes, but there are...
Mr. Speaker: On that note, Mr. Greenidge, you need some time to be extended to you. Could someone move the motion?
Ms. Ally: Yes. I move that the Hon. Member be given fifteen minutes to continue his presentation.
Question put, and agreed to.
Mr. Greenidge: The other jurisdictions, we speak about, actually, I do not think anyone of them can point to a situation in which an Ombudsman has not been appointed in eight year, in which a Chief Justice and Chancellor have been acting. Equally, and for an equally long time. These are bodies, these are officials who protect our fundamental rights and we are looking at legislation that seeks to put more powers in the hands of the Government to abuse our rights. In those circumstances, we are saying that  until this Government can demonstrate that it is responsible by passing legislation, by assenting to legislation, which properly goes to it from this House, by appointing the post, appointing to positions, which we have agreed, then  it cannot expect us to lend any support to these items -  none whatsoever.
I do not have to speak for the AFC, but the AFC was already said that in realist of conditions is the requirement that the Public Procurement Commission be established, operational and properly in place. Until such time that the Government does that we will not support this Bill. In the meantime, whilst the Government Members think about it, we are only prepared to entertain it here that it goes to a Special Select Committee for the completion of the work they started.
Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. [Applause]