Davies, left, and Shaw
Robert Hart, Parliamentary Reporter
OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on finance, Audley Shaw, demanded yesterday that Government withdraw its proposed anti-money laundering legislation, describing it has flawed and 'pitchy patchy'.
Mr. Shaw's comments came following concerns raised by the Attorney-General's chambers an unlikely ally that the Ministry of Finance and Planning had failed to make "fundamental adjustments" to the proposed legislation.
"The Bill as proposed is fundamentally and fatally flawed and it ought to be withdrawn outright," Mr. Shaw said. "We are not going to be sanctioning any pitchy patchy legislation."
COLOSSAL EMBARRASSMENT
Mr. Shaw, in an interview with The Gleaner, added that yesterday's first sitting of the joint select committee examining the legislation represented a "colossal embarrassment for the Government" and Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies.
He said the Government had tabled the Bill in "indecent haste" and was desperately trying to make quick fix adjustments to prevent any greater fallout. The legislation, he added, should be redrafted and resubmitted to the House of Representatives.
Yesterday's deliberations were cut short when the Attorney-General's Chambers said changes were made to the Bill after government lawyers had concluded their participation in the drafting process.
Marlene Aldred, a senior representative in the department, told the committee that the Ministry of Finance and Planning failed to adequately deal with her office's concerns in a new list of changes submitted to the committee.
"We didn't get the draft (of new amendments) before today so we have not been able to examine it properly, but on a cursory glance we realise that it does not address all of the concerns that we raised in our correspondence," she said.
However, a visibly flustered Dr. Davies, who is also the committee chairman, was not amused, especially when the words "anomalies" and "inconsistencies" were used by the Attorney-General's Chambers to describe the proposed legislation.
He complained that the Attorney-General's Chambers had taken too long to air its latest concerns. "With all due respect, this is not good enough," argued Dr. Davies, who would later leave the Gordon House building in apparent disgust.
The Money Laundering Amendment Bill, tabled in the House of Representatives last month, has been brought into sharp focus since Solicitor-General Michael Hylton revealed that the legislation would widen the pool of entities required to inform the police of suspicious financial transactions.
Among those to be affected by the proposed new legislation are lawyers, real estate agents and used car dealers all of whom have objected to their proposed role as government informants.
The Bill will now have to be redrafted to include the amendments presented yesterday as well as the amendments put forward by the Attorney-General's chambers.
