The Bahamas Prime Minister, Hubert A Ingraham, has returned to the island from his official visit to North America. The official delegation was an endeavour to assure US and Canadian governmental and financial sector representatives of the Bahamas' commitment to responsible legislation with regard to money laundering after the Bahamas was branded as one of 15 havens for 'hot money' and subsequently incurred an US Treasury advisory. The Prime Minister in fact returned earlier than expected in order to oversee some of the most urgent amendments, while the rest of his delegation remained in America to continue talks on his behalf. One of the most important legislative changes will be to the Evidence Act.
On their official visit, which commenced July 23, Mr Ingraham and his delegation, which included Finance Minister Sir William Allen and Governor of the Central Bank Julian Francis, entered into talks with US Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, and US Attourney General, Janet Reno. Discussions also took place with senators and members of the House of Representatives, and heads the of leading North American banking institutions that have interests in the Bahamas.
The meetings, which took place in Washington, New York, Ottawa and Toronto, were also attended by the Bahamas Ambassador to the US, who praised Ingraham on his discussions with the North American representatives. Joshua Sears said: 'I think they got a real appreciation of the depth and feeling of the Government of the Bahamas … the Prime Minister put the case of the Bahamas forthrightly and I think it was understood. I sense a real genuine understanding and an attempt to do what is required to meet the concerns of the Bahamas. Collaboration, support and working together as an international community is indeed the best way to attack this (money laundering) problem. When you take action to name and shame countries, you're really undermining the process which they are all committed to taking.'
The Ambassador stated that the Bahamas is serious in its undertaking to address its money laundering issues: 'We have demonstrated by action previous to now that we intended to implement certain measures to bring our regulations up to standard.' Mr Sears is also keen to placate the concerns of the island's financial services sector. Some members of the industry fear their international reputation will have been tarnished as a consequence of initiatives from the FATF and OECD. Mr Sears said: 'I've been monitoring the news coming out of Nassau and I sensed there is a certain amount of anxiety being expressed by persons in the community and by the population in general …I think it's important to put this matter in perspective. This is an issue which has a long history … we undertook as part of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force to implement international best practices.'
Furthermore, Mr Sears maintains that the Bahamas and the United States continue to enjoy their close links, he said: 'There are so many areas of positive collaboration … there is a plethora of relationships between our countries. People ought not judge the relationship between the United States and the Bahamas on this one particular issue.'
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