Barbados is spending big bucks to comply with global anti-money laundering regulations, even though there is very little financial crime, says the head of the state financial services watchdog.
Chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC) Professor Avinash Persaud said that Barbados is spending a fortune on compliance, while at the same time having to send home hundreds of public servants as part of an on-going debt restructuring process.
Barbados is one of the few countries in the world that still has exchange controls, making it difficult for local business owners to move their money around – and thus impossible for money launderers, Professor Persaud said.
“So, who on earth, would come and launder money here? I mean if a money launderer was found caught in Barbados with exchange controls, you have to wonder whether the right place for them is prison or a mental asylum,” he said, while delivering remarks at today’s opening of a regional meeting on compliance at the Hilton Barbados Resort.
“One of the problems we are facing in the Caribbean is that the process being required of us is increasingly expensive, costing huge amounts of money.
“We are cutting our welfare budgets, we are laying off workers, and we are having to spend more money on compliance and regulation to hit the process even though there is very little money laundering in our region,” he continued.
Professor Persaud, who suggested that it would be pointless for money launderers to operate in small island states with exchange controls, also turned his attention to the fact that the region has lost more correspondent banking relationships than any other in the world.
While banks are doing a risk return calculation, the risk of being slapped with a large fine unrelated to the magnitude of money laundering, is large, while the profits they make from the region are small, the economist said.
“So they are not closing correspondent banking relationships because they think there is money laundering. But, because they say the risk return trade off doesn’t make any sense, that if they get a one billion dollar fine it would take decades of profits in order to afford that fine. It doesn’t make sense and they are withdrawing correspondent banking relationships with serious consequences for small islands who can only exist by international trade,” he added.
In an effort to tackle the consequences of regulatory compliance regulations, Professor Persaud called for a regional approach to forming a database showing the roots and paths of money laundering in the world.
“We need to have this information not done every ten years, but on a regular annual basis. Again, providing us with the ammunition to make our cases when we are being put on a list for not having a process to track something that doesn’t actually happen in our countries,” he said.
As the conference opened, Attorney General Dale Marshall told local compliance professionals that it was important for them to find a delicate balance between meeting all of the regulatory requirements, while making their businesses more attractive for new clients, staying competitive, and contributing to Barbados’ international reputation as a clean jurisdiction.
“Compliance professionals are vital to the continued health and viability of your organizations.… You and your organizations are ultimately part of the economic future of countries in the Caribbean.
“As a policy maker, I view you as partners in our efforts to build a robust and resilient business friendly Barbados, a Barbados that is free from corruption in any form, a Barbados that is competitive, a Barbados that is financially sound, and one that has a strong voice in the international community,” Marshall said.
Please, BT……Mr. Persaud, not Professor Persaud!
Is Persaud trying ot pull the wool over our eyes? I can’t believe what I’m reading.
Persaud wants to open the flood gate for money laundering and corruption. Not long ago a bank called a fella for his $10m., it wanted nothing to do with it, was that dirty money? and then one from his coterie told him to bring it and he will take care of it for him, nothing more was heard of that transaction. Barbados would have to call in the FEDS because they say its too expensive to fight corruption and money laundering as their excuse.
Persaud; what about the $10m that the bank refused to deal with?
Well Persaud u have highlighted one of them areas riddled with loopholes, grey areas and excuses. Another monetary evaporator is that climate change lollipop that the blind is currently $ucking on.
“We are cutting our welfare budgets, we are laying off workers, and we are having to spend more money on compliance and regulation to hit the process even though there is very little money laundering in our region,” he
continued.
So, it was whilst reading the above Barbados Today
news story – a part
of which has been extracted and placed to the top of this particular comment –
that I had to cringe at the poor taste and bad choice of words and fallacious reasoning that Persaud was reported to have
used in attempting a
justification for the
use of so many
credits to the
relevant persons,
whilst the
government of
Barbados made sure
that those persons
helped to keep the
country’s in and off
shore financial jurisdictions
essentially clean.
Notwithstanding
such instances of poor public
speaking by Persaud, it is clear that this inept BLP
government – on
whose behalf
Persaud speaks too –
has been proven to have got many of its
priorities totally
mixed up.
For, this government is getting
transferred more credits
(what is the figure
per year?) to the receipts of
persons who are
helping to make sure
that Barbados has essentially
clean in and off
shore financial
jurisdictions,
whereas – according to Persaud – there is
little possibility of
so-called money
laundering taking
place. Yet, in the same breath he
postures that the
government is cutting back on its
welfare budget and sending home
workers.
Whilst it can be
concluded from the
tenor of the reported
comments that
Persaud is very insensitive to the
plight of the poor in
this country – by his
suggesting that
government has to
cut back on its
welfare budget and
its workforce, in
order to help meet the increasing costs
to such persons
monitoring
Barbados’ in and off shore financial
jurisdictions; and is
very misleading about the greater importance of increasing transfers
to persons policing the jurisdiction over the importance of the cut backs
in welfare and work
forces of
government – for the
very reasons that
the cut backs were agreed to
by the government
and the IMF under
different conditions –
the BERT and EFF
programs being the basis of such cuts –
this Chairman of the Financial Services
Commission still
shows exactly why
there is a gross
neglect of and
indifference to some of the same social services that
so many poor people use – by this
increasingly
uncaring and unfeeling BLP
government not responding properly
so far with concerted proportionate
actions to the
increasing clamours of the poorer and not so poorer population of people
for better and more timely delivered
social services – and not responding
properly so far to such failures to
deliver such actions – nevermind this ossie moore BLP’s
remonstrations to the contrary, in esp the last five years before the last
election.
Hence, whilst the efficacy and
effectiveness of
policing Barbados financial jurisdictions should
and must lead to
lower costs within it, I must therefore
remind this inept BLP that – whilst in
parliamentary
opposition – they
were the ones
making the loudest
noises about the
ineffacacies,
ineffectivenesses
and inefficiencies of
TB bus service, the
garbage collection
service, the traffic
systems, the sewerage collecting and treatment systems on the
South Coast
and in the City, the
Health care delivery systems, etc, and
the ones who often
realized too – during that aformentioned
time – that with such problems
continuing un/resolved there
should and must be
increasing attendant
costs and greater receipts to the
persons resolving those problems.
Hence, it is on the
basis that greater
costs are wrongly
being helped allocated by government to the
country’s in and
offshore financial jurisdictions that are already (proven to be) efficient and
effective, whereas lesser costs are
wrongly being helped allocated by this said government to these social/sanitation
jurisdictions which
though are greatly (proven to be) in need of efficacy and
efficiency – at this point in time of increasing slowing
down of the money
circulation and
financial credit generating
systems in Barbados
– that Persaud’s central argument
(that government must spend
increasing money on persons monitoring and policing
Barbados’s in shore
and offshore jurisdictions – it has the option of getting less credits transferred to persons involved in such a process) is
probably invalid and
defective – and does reflect though that
the government does patently have some of its priorities
so wrong on these critical matters.
The BLP PROMISED to bring out “The Freedom of Information Act”. Bim supposedly follows the UK and the UK had this Act since 2002. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public authorities. It does this in two ways: public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities; and members of the public are entitled to request information from public authorities.
That is the key to let us ALL know….They are all players in the same game. Bs and Ds….They dont care about Bim, they care about YOUR money and assets only for themselves !!
Yet Bim has the Queen as the Head of the Commonwealth…..so who is here to save the ppl….Save yourselves and forget the fiasco, they try to blind the ppl with rhetoric, all the time !!