Pointing out that the amendment Bills will frustrate efforts to launder money through MTB services, Ingraham added that they also seek to bring the Bahamas into compliance with the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Special Recommendation VI on alternative remittances.

The FATF Recommendation states that: “Each country should take measures to ensure that persons or legal entities, including agents, that provide a service for the transmission of money or value, including transmission through an informal money or value transfer system or network, should be licensed or registered and subject to all FATF Recommendations that apply to banks and non-bank financial institutions.”

The Recommendation goes on to state that each country should ensure that persons or legal entities that carry out this service illegally are subject to administrative, civil or criminal sanctions.

“There was a time,” the Prime Minister noted, “when the financial services sector enjoyed the unanimous support of all sides of the House and we always agreed to legislative changes and initiatives because both political parties determined that the financial services sector was a sector that was in the interest of the Bahamas."

“A divide took place after the year 2000 and we are still following along that path,” he continued. “Hopefully the time will come when there will be bipartisan support for legislative and policy initiatives related to the financial services sector because it is very important for the sector to have certainty that irrespective of which political party is in office, there is a commitment to the sector; to regulate it and have policies that are consistent and are known and that are not easily changed.”

Ingraham’s call for bi-partisan cooperation foreshadowed his responses to questions and criticisms levelled by the Opposition during debate on the Bills.

The Prime Minister refuted claims that insufficient consultation took place prior to the Bills being brought to Parliament, pointing out that the Bills – driven by the Central Bank of the Bahamas - were drafted months before his government assumed office, and that the Bank released its public consultation paper on a proposal for it to assume responsibility for the regulation and supervision of stand-alone MTBs on 27 February, 2007.

“This document was published on the Bank’s website, as is customary, and the deadline for receiving comments was set at 30 March 2007,” Ingraham explained. “All stakeholders were advised via mass e-mail of the release of the paper.”

The consultation paper, he pointed out, also outlined the rationale for making the proposals, and invited the public and industry stakeholders to comment on the issues outlined in the consultation paper and the draft bills and regulations annexed to the paper.

“Subsequent to receiving these comments, the Bank invited all the industry stakeholders to a meeting on 5th July, 2007. During this meeting, the Bank presented participants with a summary document containing all the comments it had received along with the Bank’s reasoning as to why it accepted some comments and not others. The Bank then finalised its proposals and submitted them for the Government’s consideration," the PM stated.

Ingraham confirmed that the proposed legislation is intended to rationalize and simplify the regulatory framework for stand-alone money transmission businesses operating in the Bahamas by streamlining the supervision of money transmission businesses (MTBs) in the Bahamas under the regulatory authority of the Central Bank.

During the debate, the Opposition’s MP for St. Thomas More cited the need for economic stimulus in the country, asserting therefore that the government should have extended stamp tax exemption for first time homeowners with homes valued less than 250,000 dollars.

Noting at the onset that stamp tax is not paid on homes built and sold by the government, Ingraham went on to table statistics on the number of residential construction permits issued between 1993 and 2006.

“The numbers here are reflective of the growth of the Bahamian economy, employment levels and incomes which people were earning notwithstanding in the latter years from 2003 onward, that the government of the Bahamas accelerated its housing programme and built hundreds and hundreds of houses,” Ingraham explained.

“In the years preceding that when people were building their own homes because they were working and had the income, the numbers are roughly the same,” he noted.