ADDRESS BY HON LESTER BIRD MP, PRIME MINISTER OF ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE 10th MEETING OF THE CFATF COUNCIL ON THURSDAY, 23RD OCTOBER 2003.

Mr Chairman, Honourable Ministers, Heads of Delegations, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Let me begin by adding my voice to the chorus of welcomes to Antigua and Barbuda.

We are pleased to have you here, and we are delighted to host this 18th Meeting of the Plenary of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) and the 10th Meeting of its Council.

This is an important occasion both for CFATF and, just as importantly, the people of Antigua and Barbuda.

It marks the point when everyone can recognise and celebrate both the significant contribution that CFATF makes to the fight against money laundering in the Region and the long and hard road that Antigua and Barbuda itself has travelled in the same struggle.

We, in Antigua and Barbuda, are extremely pleased that the rigorous evaluation of our jurisdiction, conducted by a team of CFATF examiners last year, found our jurisdiction to be fully compliant with all 40 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on countering money laundering as well as its 25 criteria on Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories.

Of course, in 2000, the Financial Action Task Force, the body established by the G7 countries, had already determined that Antigua and Barbuda was fully cooperative in the fight against money laundering and we never appeared on its blacklist of countries.

Notwithstanding the endorsement by the Paris-based FATF, we welcomed the further evaluation of our jurisdiction by our peer jurisdictions in the CFATF last year.

It was extremely important to us that our sister-jurisdictions in the Caribbean and other parts of the Americas should be fully satisfied that Antigua and Barbuda is a very strong link in the Regional chain of resistance to money laundering and terrorism financing.

There has been some speculation about our position since our suspension last week in Ottawa of the conditional commitment we had given last year to the Organisation for Cooperation in Economic Development on its harmful tax competition initiative.

Let me take this opportunity to make it clear that the OECD’s harmful tax competition initiative has nothing to do with the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. The kernel of the OECD scheme is about providing information on civil tax matters.

Antigua and Barbuda gave a commitment to the OECD to work with them on devising acceptable standards and practices for providing information on civil tax matters as long as all other countries, particularly, our competitors were required to do the same. In other words, the condition of our commitment was a level playing field.

However, in June of this year, the European Union Council of Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs did a deal under which three EU countries and five others were exempted from a requirement for providing information on civil tax matters. Among those eight countries were Antigua and Barbuda’s most serious competitors in the financial services industry.

Were we to agree to continue to seek ways of providing information to OECD countries while several of their major tax haven countries are exempted from doing so, my Government would have condemned its financial services sector to certain death.

We could do no such thing.

We have a duty of care to our people to maintain their jobs and to earn the revenue necessary to deliver the quality of life they have a right to expect. We would fail in our duty if we ignored their livelihood in the interest of cooperation with tax collectors in the OECD.

In the event, no further work will be done by anyone on the OECD harmful tax competition initiative until next Spring when a working group of OECD and non-OECD countries will report on whether or not it will be possible to create the level playing field which is a condition precedent for all non-OECD countries to continue to participate.

Therefore, while the decision of the European Union Council last June has caused Antigua and Barbuda to suspended its conditional commitment to the OECD initiative, and St Vincent and the Grenadines has formally put its conditional commitment into abeyance, the reality is that all non-OECD countries have effectively suspended all work on this matter until the results of the Working Group’s efforts are known next Spring.

In the meantime, Antigua and Barbuda will continue to honour in full those existing tax information exchange agreements that e have negotiated bilaterally with countries such as the United States.

Let me repeat that the OECD’s efforts on providing information on civil tax matters have nothing to do with money laundering and terrorism financing, and let there be no doubt of my Government’s unswerving commitment to the global fight against drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism financing.

We have been in the forefront of this fight, and it is in the forefront that we intend to remain.

Ladies and Gentlemen, having been elected Deputy Chairman of CFATF last year, Antigua and Barbuda will assume the chairmanship of CFATF at this meeting in the person of Sir Ronald Sanders, our Chief Foreign Affairs Representative with Ministerial Rank.

Sir Ronald, the Honourable Wrenford Ferrance my Special Adviser on anti-narcotics and anti money laundering and their teams have been crucial to me, as the Minister responsible for these matters, in the vital decisions I have had to make to ensure that Antigua and Barbuda holds its head high in the international community.

We look forward to being able to serve the entire Caribbean in the role of CFATF Chairman.

My Government recognised in the 1990’s the corrosive effect of dirty money on any sovereign jurisdiction, especially small island states.

We were one of the first to join CFATF.

We understood that out nation’s autonomy would be compromised if we did not continue to exercise continued vigilance against criminal elements, many of whom cloaked their activities behind the veil of commercial schemes.

We had to work hard to bring about changes in our financial services sector, and to adopt tough anti-money laundering legislation. Today our legislative framework is recognised as amongst the best in the region.

We have also established one of the best enforcement regimes in the Office of National Drug Control Money Laundering Policy (ONDC).

With the adoption of the Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy Act, 2003, Antigua and Barbuda leads the way in the Region in the establishment of special law enforcement agency empowered to investigate high level crime and drug trafficking.

We were the first jurisdiction in the region to take action against terrorism financing after the terrible events of September 11 by the adoption of a law that outlawed this activity and required financial institutions to freeze the assets held by listed terrorists and terrorist organisations.

Within the next few months, we will be strengthening our laws on terrorism by criminalizing certain activities and imposing stiff penalties for culprits.

Antigua and Barbuda stands firm in its resolve to help stamp out terrorist activities and we are proud to do so.

But as we work with our friends in the region and beyond in the wider international community, it should not be assumed that we will simply acquiesce in decisions made by organisations to which we do not belong.

In this regard, it must be recognised that the international fight against money laundering has not always been conducted in a manner that is inclusive and consultative. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) remains an exclusive body bereft of any Caribbean representation.

For example the recent Review of the 40 FATF Recommendations was conducted without adequate consultation with the region.

Even now the methodology for the application of the Revised 40 Recommendations is being prepared by a tiny group of individuals drawn from the FATF Secretariat and the IMF, who have just presented their interim report to the FATF in Sweden. This is not the way to secure effective international cooperation.

We base our international relations, in every field, on the principle of mutual respect and understanding. We will accord such respect and understanding to all, but we expect to be accorded respect and understanding in return.

Notwithstanding our small size we will not be taken for granted by any organisation or any other jurisdiction. We pledge support for any just cause, but we expect full participation in the determination of these causes and in the manner in which they are addressed.

My Government hopes that the FATF method of coercing jurisdictions through blacklisting and sanctions is now a thing of the past, and that we will see a more enlightened approach in the future, one in which the Caribbean’s support for any project is ensured through Caribbean participation both in its formulation and its implementation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, international relations today are in a deeply troubled state. Continuing conflict in the Middle-East, deep suspicion even amongst countries that have been the closest allies, a world economy in recession, high unemployment in the industrialised world, collapse of large and small businesses, increased poverty in developing countries, tension between rich and poor nations over terms of trade – these are all conditions in which criminality thrives.

The criminal exploits the vulnerabilities of the needy as well as the weaknesses of the greedy.

The current world conditions, therefore, present unparalleled opportunities for drug traffickers and money launderers. To thwart them, the world must cooperate as much in improving employment and eliminating poverty in poor countries as it must in curbing greed and exploitation in rich ones.

In this connection, CFATF should take the lead in trying to create a genuinely consultative and participatory mechanism by which the Steering Groups of the regional Financial Action Task Forces meet as equal partners to determine together ways in which international standards and practices should be devised and implemented. These groups are CFATF, the Financial Action Task Force on Anti-money laundering in South America (GAFISUD), the Asia Pacific Group, the Eastern and Southern Africa Money Laundering Group and the Financial Action Task Force.

I commend this proposal to your Conference. It is one which would bring to the deliberations on counter money laundering and counter terrorism financing, some measure of the inclusiveness, participation, and democracy that these global issues require if they are to be addressed with any greater degree of success than presently obtains.

World events may not give us another opportunity to find ways of working together across the Regions of the Globe in a cooperative and constructive manner to end these scourges which endanger all our peoples.

I urge this Conference to seize the moment.

Thank you.