Authorities are drawing up plans to add an anti-terrorism law and to simplify the Bahamas’ financial regulatory system, the attorney general said.
The task force said the country should overhaul its regulatory system to make it more practical, cost efficient and effective in rooting out money laundering, tax evasion and other illegal practices.
Attorney General Alfred Sears told reporters late Wednesday that a report on the Bahamas by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force was “generally very favorable.” The report was given to Bahamian officials on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the report recommended changing 11 laws, specifically to reduce the number of financial monitoring agencies.
“What we are aiming for is to harmonize and better coordinate the regulators so that we have one system that is economical, integrated and uniformed,” Sears said.
The Bahamas, a country of about 700 islands and cays off Florida, is one of the richest countries in the Caribbean, with an economy based on tourism and offshore banking.
Laws passed by the former government in 2000 created several regulatory groups to oversee companies in the Bahamas.
The government will also consider laws to help fight terrorism, Sears said, noting that many Caribbean countries monitored by the regional task force had agreed to include anti-terrorism measures in their steps to fight money laundering.
“When the current laws were passed, terrorism was not such a major consideration,” he said. “To that extent, we are determining the sufficiency of our laws with regards to these evolving issues.”
Sears did not say which government agencies might be merged or eliminated in restructuring the regulatory system.
The task force is the Caribbean branch of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which in 2000 named several Caribbean countries on a list of countries deemed uncooperative in fighting money laundering.
The Paris group has since removed the Bahamas after its government passed legislation requiring more stringent standards in tax reporting. The Cayman Islands, Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis have also been removed from the blacklist, but Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines remain.
By Samantha Joseph (AP)
