Necessary measure
Wednesday February 02 2011 | 04:18 AM

Minister of International Business and International Transport, George Hutson, has welcomed the establishment of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority.

He told the House of Assembly during the pre-lunch session today that the powers of that body were "significant" and would help to police businesses in Barbados and international corporations that have opened doors here.

Speaking during debate on the Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2010, he said he was also supportive of the initiatives in the legislation "to have the Financial Services Authority being able to investigate different corporations or follow transactions into different corporations".

 Time to do more

"I think the Attorney General made the observation, as I have done on other occasions within this House in terms of us, the tax authorities here in Barbados, to be able to do a bit more in terms of the policing of those activities, in terms of utilising parts of the income tax legislation to allow persons that are obviously living above the level of their income to be able to use the tax legislation to address those short comings and do its part in addressing the issue of money laundering.

"Certainly in the UK were the provisions as far as money laundering and measures to finance terrorism, the legislation is a lot tighter than in some of the other first world jurisdictions and persons in the UK can actually be charged with offences for the proceeds of their own crime that may fall within the definition of the money laundering provisions of the UK," the St. James Central MP said.

Hutson noted that in the UK money laundering "covers any activity by which the proceeds of crime are hidden or concealed or so disguised that it may appear to be the source of legal origin".

Concern

One of his concerns about the anti-money laundering legislation related to the similarity of provisions contained in the Financial Services Commission.

"I wonder to some extent, given the similarity in the objectives of the two bits and pieces of legislation, and given the limited resources of countries the size of Barbados, whether this authority which has responsibility for managing this legislation ... would not be a better fit within the Financial Services Commission.

"Certainly the power to go in and follow the transactions are very much contained within the Financial Services Commission as it relates to following of transactions in general and it may very well be a situation where the recurring costs of this authority may very well be duplicated in the FSC, which we are in the process of establishing," the minister said.