Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporter
Davies
WESTERN BUREAU:
GOVERNMENT WILL be moving to finalise regulations to have credit unions implement and comply with recommendations to prevent and control money laundering and the financing of terrorism, by year-end.
"The fundamental challenge is that the Credit Union League has played historically a dual role. The credit unions have been self-regulated, in the sense that the league was their regulator but their financial centre," explained Dr. Omar Davies, Finance and Planning Minister.
"One issue is the separation, which all sides accept, of the regulatory activities and the financial activities because it is in a sense accepted that they are not complementary."
He said it has to be decided what the credit unions, given their unique membership bases, will regulate for themselves and what goes to the Central Bank, the government regulatory authority.
Dr. Davies was speaking in an interview with The Gleaner at the XII Ministerial Meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), held at the Ritz Carlton Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, on Friday.
The CFATF is an organisation of states and territories of the Caribbean basin, which have agreed to implement counter-measures against money laundering and terrorism financing.
It monitors members' implementation through the self-assessment of the 40 and Nine Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, mutual evaluation, as well as training and technical assistance programmes.
JAMAICA TO CHAIR CFATF
Jamaica, through its Solicitor-General, Michael Hylton, was elected to chair the CFATF through 2005-2006, with deputy chairmanship going to Guatemala.
"The concerns of terrorism and its financing have been forcefully added to the international agenda since the events of 9/11," Minister Davies said in an address. "Our CFATF member countries must face the fact that money laundering and the financing of terrorism are issues that are not limited to the financial sector but also extend to the wider business and professional spheres."
He added that as a minister of finance from a developing country, more so as a Jamaican, there are many aspects of money laundering and financing of terrorism that are deeply troubling.
These include threats from criminal organisations, who, according to him, penetrate and spread their influence through countries' business and professional sectors, financial systems and even charitable organisations.
