Georgetown: The Financial Action Task Force (FAFT) will pass judgment on Guyana by Thursday, Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira said.
Reports disclosed that the Presidential Advisor noted that Guyana was once again placed under the microscope when the International Corporation Review Group (ICRG) conducted its review on Monday.
Today, ICRG will continue the process of review, setting the stage for the commencement of the third and final plenary meeting on Wednesday under the Presidency of Vladimir Nechaev of the Russian Federation.
The 36 member international organisation sets the standards and promotes effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money launder, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
The international financial body will determine whether Guyana should be subjected to a prima-facie review by the International Corporation Review Board.
This therefore means that Guyana could land itself on any of the three blacklisting tiers. The most severe level, which is found at the top of the chart, effectively requires countries to issue counter measures against countries on that list. Presently, North Korea and Iran are the only two countries blacklisted at this level.
The second layer includes countries that have significant Anti-Money Laundering (AML) safety deficiencies, but have not given a political comment to deal with those issues or have not formulated an action plan in collaboration with the FATF to deal with outstanding issues.
The lowest tier encompasses countries that have issued a political comment to implement the reforms and formulated an action plan to be implemented by strategic deadlines. However, if the country during the review period offers to commit to the AML/CFT standards and establishes an action plan in conjunction with FATF, it would be placed on the lowest level.
In May, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) referred Guyana to FATF after it was further recognised as a jurisdiction with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies due to its non-compliance with the Action Plan developed with the regional body.
CFATF had already sounded an alarm, calling on member countries to safeguard themselves from Guyana with the introduction of counter measures to protect their financial systems from money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
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