The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Attorney General yesterday admitted that preparations for the Bahamas’ November evaluation by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) had not progressed as well as she had hoped.

    Speaking outside the Cabinet Office, Allyson Maynard-Gibson said the Bahamas will still be ready for the evaluation of its anti-money laundsering and counter terror financing regimes nevertheless.

“As far as CFATF is concerned, they will evaluate us at the end of the year,” she said. “Unfortunately we haven’t progressed as I would have hoped thus far in preparation for the evaluation, but we know that Bahamians are able and we will be ready for the evaluation when it gets here.

“It will mean doubling up to make sure that it happens, but my professionals advise me that that will be in place,”

Tribune Business understands that, seemingly in preparation for the evaluation, that amendments to the Bahamas’ counter terror financing legislation and regulations will be introduced and debated in the House of Assembly tomorrow.

The amendments are designed to incorporate into Bahamian law various anti-terror resolutions passed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council to counter the financing of such actions.

The Bahamas’ failure to adopt these resolutions into law has been cited as weaknesses in past CFATF reviews.

The CFATF is the regional affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that ‘blacklisted’ the Bahamas in 2000 for allegedly being non co-operative in the fight against money laundering. Several other Caribbean financial centres received the same treatment.

    In preparation for the evaluation, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said a country risk assessment had to be undertaken.

“The main thing is to have a country risk assessment done, and what that means is a peer evaluation, which means other countries evaluate you,” she said.

“We identify what we think are our significant risk areas for money laundering and terrorism financing, and the proliferation of weapons, and we then showcase the extent to which we have put in place legislation, and also the wherewithal, to implement the legislation.

“This includes if there have been, successful prosecutions as well. Those are the kinds of things that will be done between now and our evaluation,” said Mrs Maynard-Gibson.

    Last October, the Government, in partnership with the World Bank, formed a committee comprised of representatives from regulatory agencies, relevant government departments and governing bodies within the private sector to assess the anti­-money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML/CTF) strengths of the country’s largest industries.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson said that the results of that assessment have not yet been submitted to Cabinet for sign-off. “We expect that to happen shortly,” she said.