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Julien Neaves
FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert said he is confident that TT will be removed from the European Union high-risk list for countries with deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing mechanisms.
He was responding to a question in Senate Wednesday on steps being taken by Government to address the EU’s continued blacklisting of the country.
Imbert said the lead on Government’s initiatives to deal with being on a grey list was being taken by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi with support from the Finance Ministry and he congratulated Al-Rawi on his “vigorous” prosecution of the matter.
Imbert reported the steps being taken were to address all remaining deficiencies in the national anti-money laundering and combating of financing of terrorism and proliferation of financing regime of TT (AML/CFT/PF. He said the steps were under review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“These strategic deficiencies have been addressed both by significant legislative and operational improvements in AML/CFT/PF regime in our country. The Government has worked expeditiously to ensure all deficiencies are addressed in order for TT to be removed from the public FATF compliance document.”
He reported that, more recently, the country underwent an on-site assessment and examination of our authorities by FATF during January 6-7 at the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs. He said Al-Rawi would go before the FATF to receive the outcome of that assessment at the opening FATF plenary meeting during February 16-21 in Paris, France.
Imbert said Al-Rawi had established regular engagement with the European Commission and its representatives at the FATF and the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and would continue to do so at the plenary meeting.
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