by Linda Straker
- 4th Round Mutual Evaluation Report of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) published in July 2022
- 4 pieces of legislation recommended for Grenada to enact
- Approved legislations are Customs (Amendment) Bill, Friendly Societies (Amendment) Bill, Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, and Exchange Control (Amendment) Bill
Members of Parliament in the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament have approved 4 pieces of legislation that have been recommended for Grenada to enact following the 2022 Fourth Round Mutual Evaluation Report of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF).
This report summarises the Anti Money Laundering/Countering Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) measures in place as of the on-site visit 14–25 June 2021. It analyses the level of compliance with the FATF 40 Recommendations and the level of effectiveness of Grenada’s AML/CTF system and provides recommendations on how the system could be strengthened.
The 4 pieces of legislation which were approved during the 4 June sitting of the Lower House and the 6 June sitting of the Upper House are:
- Customs (Amendment) Bill, 2024
- Friendly Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2024
- Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2024
- Exchange Control (Amendment) Bill, 2024
They will become law when each piece of legislation receives the stamp of approval from the Office of the Governor-General, published in the weekly Government Gazette, and given a date of effect.
The Customs (Amendment) Bill seeks to amend the Customs Act, 2015, to enhance the integrated legislative framework to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, in conjunction with the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing Commission.
Economic Development, Planning and Cooperative Minister Lennox Andrews, who presented the bill for debate and approval in the Lower House, explained that the legislation provides for the amendment of Section 47 to insert one new subsection to mandate that the Comptroller of Customs file a Suspicious Activity Report where a person imports or attempts to import goods in a manner that is different from the declaration or intended to deceive the customs officer in contravention of Section 47 (3).
“The Suspicious Activity Report would be filed with the Financial Intelligence Unit, which receives all Suspicious Activity Reports filed under all legislation,” Andrews told the House. He further explained that the bill also mandates that the Comptroller of Customs maintain records of transactions under the Customs Act, 2015, for a minimum of 5 years.
The Amendment also requires the Comptroller of Customs to file a Suspicious Activity Report where a person makes a false declaration in contravention of section 176 (1). The Suspicious Activity Report would be filed with the Financial Intelligence Unit, which receives all Suspicious Activity Reports filed under all legislation.
The Friendly Societies (Amendment) Bill and the Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill provide for public scrutiny and examination of the names of all the members of these entities. “Grenada should make public the information on the creation of friendly societies, building societies, cooperatives and legal arrangements,” the mutual evaluation report recommended.
The Exchange Control (Amendment) Bill seeks to enhance the integrated legislative framework to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, by creating an obligation for the retention of records of transactions conducted under that legislation.
“The Permanent Secretary or the competent authority, as the case may be, shall retain each record obtained or created for the purposes of this Act, for a minimum period of 5 years from the date the record is obtained or created,” the amendment instructs. “Where the Permanent Secretary or the competent authority retains a record electronically, the Permanent Secretary or the competent authority, as the case may be, shall retain the record in an electronically readable format,” the amendment recommends.
The report, published in July 2022, also recommended that Grenada address the technical compliance deficiencies in recommendations 24 and 25 and develop widely known mechanisms to facilitate the verification of beneficial ownership information.
Recommendation 24 is that “Designated non-financial businesses and professions should be subject to regulatory and supervisory measures.” Recommendation 25 is that the competent authorities should establish guidelines and provide feedback that will assist financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions in applying national measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and in particular, in detecting and reporting suspicious transactions.
The report further called on the Government to identify, assess and understand the vulnerabilities and the extent to which legal persons created in the country can be or are misused for money laundering and terrorism financing. “Grenada should implement, based on identified vulnerabilities, mitigating measures to prevent the misuse of legal persons and legal arrangements for ML/TF purposes,” the report said.