The Tribune

ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder yesterday criticised the former administration for its failure to implement Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) requirements.

Mr Pinder in his contribution to the Senate yesterday said the Free National Movement fell short in terms of their efforts to the implementation of the common reporting standard.

He spoke as he presented the Automatic Exchange of Financial account Information Amendment Bill.

“The Bill seeks to amend the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information Act, 2016 to empower the competent authority to delegate any function or power conferred upon him by the Act to either a designated officer or a designated supervisory authority,” he said.

Mr Pinder noted the country in 2018 commenced exchanges under the AEOI Standard.

He explained the Global Forum conducted a peer review of the country’s effectiveness of the implementation of the standard in practice.

He continued: “Shortly after we came to office, the government received a report regarding the peer review that was conducted in 2020 – 2021. The report from the Global Forum indicated The Bahamas is compliant with respect to exchanging information in an effective and timely manner.

“However, there is a need to ensure that reporting financial institutions correctly conduct the due diligence and reporting procedures.”

Mr Pinder said despite meeting the standard required in one of the two areas that were reviewed, the overall rating of the technical effectiveness of the implementation of the AEOI standards was rated as non-compliant.

Mr Pinder said he, along with the Minister for Economic Affairs and others, attended the OECD peer review report presentation in Paris to advocate on behalf of The Bahamas for a reconsideration of the report earlier this year.

However, despite their efforts the OECD peer review group did not change the overall finding on the effectiveness of the implementation of the AEOI; there was agreement made to fix the deficiencies found in the report.

Mr Pinder underscored the government has committed to fixing the deficiencies or the “comedy of errors” by the previous administration.

He said: “The former administration was aware of these deficiencies and failed to correct them, they ignored the identified improvements and adjustments recommended by the OECD and thus we find ourselves regarded as non-compliance.

“A comedy of errors by the FNM now led by a comedian, we will fix their missteps, we will remedy their wrongs.”

Mr Pinder noted the European Union has added this country to its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. He emphasised the government is actively fixing these issues and “again remedying the comedy“ of errors of the previous administration.

He said the former FNM government looked to put the substance reporting through the Department of Inland Revenue framework.

However, he called that method ineffective and presented many problems with the actual administration of the reporting itself.

He added: “In fact, at a point in time the reporting was being done on a manual entry basis as the entire platform was non-functional. A complete failure of implementation which led to the blacklisting of the country by the EU.”