PHILIPSBURG--The St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce and Industry (COCI) is calling for urgent action by Parliament and the caretaker government on pending anti-money-laundering (AML) legislation and regulations countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), which are currently held up in Parliament.
COCI’s board held an urgent meeting on Sunday and wrote a letter to Parliament Chairperson William Marlin on these issues.
COCI met with Justice Minister Cornelius de Weever in August to talk about the draft AML and CFT legislation. COCI was invited to Parliament on two occasions to give its opinion on the draft legislation. However, both meetings were cancelled.
“Discussions and law amendments date back to 2014. Five years later, it’s 11 minutes before midnight and our time is just about up. The CFATF [Caribbean Financial Action Task Force – Ed.] will be meeting in November, a little over 30 days from now, and the legislation needs to be finalised and submitted for scrutiny and evaluation by the CFATF.
“The COCI boards have received numerous messages of concern from the business community who are dependent on the financial integrity of the country’s financial system, that allows economic activity to be conducted on a daily basis locally, regionally and internationally.
“We are extremely concerned for the economic wellbeing of the national economy and strongly appeal to the executive and legislative branches of government to adopt the law as soon as possible to ensure that the consequences of non-compliance do not happen,” said COCI President Benjamin Ortega on Sunday.
COCI has already taken the necessary steps to implement part of the AML/CFT laws that have been passed, the chamber said on Monday.
The CFATF, an organisation of Caribbean states and territories that have agreed to implement common countermeasures against money-laundering and terrorism financing, has established a deadline for St. Maarten to present copies of legislation and measures taken to combat money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing, which would be scrutinised by the CFATF.
St. Maarten has already received an extension and must submit these laws before November, at which time the CFAFT would look at technical compliance and the effectiveness of St. Maarten’s legislative framework in preventing terrorist-financing and money-laundering.
