By LINDSAY THOMPSON
Guardian Business Editor
lindsay@nasguard.com
New legislation on The Bahamas' anti-money laundering regime is expected to be passed within one year, Attorney General Alfred Sears told the House of Assembly on Wednesday.
In his Communication on the Plenary and Ministerial Meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, he said that the recent Report of the Mutual Evaluation of The Bahamas was "a fair commentary" on the anti-money laundering regime in the country.
Mr. Sears asked his Parliamentary colleagues to pay special attention to the recommendations of the examiners.
He then announced that the Government is expected to implement the recommendations and pass the necessary legislation within one year.
And, that these recommendations would be considered in the review of the legislation that would take place after consultation with the financial services industry, Mr. Sears said.
This announcement comes two years after The Bahamas was blacklisted as "uncooperative" in anti-money laundering practices by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). And, in order to be removed from that blacklist, The Bahamas enacted radical laws to govern its financial services sector.
The CFATF Report of the Mutual Evaluation of The Bahamas was submitted to Cabinet on Tuesday.
The CFATF was held here October 15 to 18, during which Mr. Sears assumed the Chairmanship, after The Bahamas would have served for one year as the Deputy Chair of the organisation. Antigua and Barbuda was elected unanimously to the position of Deputy Chair of the CFATF, upon the nomination of The Bahamas and will assume the position of the Chair at the annual Ministerial Council meeting next year.
Guatemala, Guyana and Honduras officially became members of CFATF at a signing ceremony at the start of the Ministerial Council meeting on Thursday, October 17, bringing the membership of CFATF to 29 member states.
As Chairman of CFATF, Mr. Sears would have the opportunity to attend Plenary sessions of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as well as Council Meetings, to represent the views of all the member states of CFATF and most importantly, for The Bahamas to have a voice at this important international organisation with which the country has an "unfortunate" history.
As the CFATF is the oldest and the "most successful" FATF-styled regional organisation, Mr. Sears said it was also his intention to assist the other regional organisations such as the South American Financial Action Task Force and the recently established African Financial Action Task Force.
The Nassau sessions dealt with the Mutual Evaluation of The Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. All the Mutual Evaluations were considered at the Plenary and approved by the Ministerial Meeting.
"The Plenary experienced problems with respect to the mutual evaluation report of The Bahamas and Barbados due to the fact that these reports were finalised on Monday evening and the Secretariat was unable to have the reports translated into Spanish," Mr. Sears said. "The mutual evaluation of The Bahamas proceeded but Barbados opted to deal with their mutual evaluation at the next Plenary scheduled for March 2003."
He told Parliament that the Secretariat agreed to have the report of the Mutual Evaluation of The Bahamas translated at an early opportunity and transmitted to the Spanish-speaking delegates along with the written response of the Attorney General of The Bahamas to the Mutual Evaluation.
Also at the recent CFATF meeting, a representative from the International Monetary Fund/World Bank made a presentation on the new Methodology for Assessing Compliance with Anti-money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism Standards (AML/CFT) that was adopted at the FATF meeting on October 11, 2002.
The IMF representative also indicated that this methodology document would also be used by the IMF in their Financial Sector Assessment Programmed (FSAP) and Offshore Financial Services (OFC) Assessments that have been scheduled for the coming months in Anguilla, The Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands and those countries that are a part of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.
Mr. Sears said that the IMF/WB indicated further that they are prepared to consider cooperating and participating in the forthcoming training seminar for CFATF evaluators to familarise evaluators with the new assessment methodology.
He added that the ministers at the Ministerial Council agreed to expand the mandate of the CFATF to include the FATF eight special recommendations dealing with the financing of terrorism.
