Introduction
Guyana joined the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) in 2002, twelve years after it was established in May 1990. The CFATF is an associate member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international body established in 1989 charged with examining countries’ money laundering techniques and trends, reviewing the actions which they had already taken, and setting out the measures that still needed to be taken to combat money laundering. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FATF added terrorist financing to its mandate.
By 2002, Guyana had already passed the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act 2000 which granted to the Minister of Finance the discretion to appoint the Bank of Guyana or some fit and proper person as the Supervisory Authority for the Act. Favouring the latter course, some time in 2005 the Minister of Finance handpicked Mr Paul Geer to head a Financial Intelligence Unit located in the Ministry of Finance. Mr Geer’s experience included five years as head of the Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry, which he left abruptly – officially for personal reasons ‒ in a golden parachute and after a meeting of the bank’s Board of Directors.
Despite the allocation by the National Assembly for the FIU of more than two hundred and seventy-five million dollars since Mr Geer took up the position, the unit has had virtually no success in pursuing even the limited objectives of the 2000 Act. Not surprisingly then, Guyana’s reputation as a
