The Alliance For change notes the propagandising of the Anti-Money Laundering/ Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill by the PPP Government.
The Government, while it extends tremendous energy and resources both human and financial, has failed to extend even a small fraction of that energy towards reaching consensus with the Parliamentary Political Parties.
While it is beneficial for the electorate to be informed on the provisions of the Bill, the AFC has noted that the many outreaches by the Government fail to address this area and have instead been used to cast blame of the opposition. The AFC has also noted that the Government continuously fails to explain to those who attend the outreaches, why it failed to to bring the amendments to the House for over seventeen months. Many will recall that the Caribbean Financial action Task Force (CFATF) had indicated the need to amend legislation as early as November 2011.
Even after sitting of the information from CFATF for close to one and a half years, the Government when it did bring the amendments to the House was recalcitrant is providing all the needed information to the opposition.
Now that the government finds itself under pressure from local, regional and international bodies to pass the amendments, it is blaming the Opposition for the delays. At the same time, the Government is opposed to engaging the Parties at the tripartite level to resolve differences so that the Bill could be passed.
The public need to be aware that the only tripartite meeting on the AML/CFT (Amendment) Bill held on February 26th was arranged at the insistence of the Alliance For Change.
The AFC calls on the Government to sit at the table with the political opposition to address in a spirit of compromise the various concerns of the Opposition. It must be made clear, that no amount of propagandising and electioneering can get the Bill passed without engaging the Parliamentary Opposition.
March 13th 2014
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