Attorney General Carl Bethel said yesterday that by regulation in less than 24 hours, the Ministry of Finance will be added to the list of authorities entitled to search the register to obtain beneficial ownership information.
Bethel said there is a common law right that every person enjoys confidentiality of their business and private affairs.
The attorney general said the Register of Beneficial Ownership Act strictly limits the authorities who may request and receive the benefits of a search and the Ministry of Finance was not, “unfortunately”, included as an authority on the matter.
“Under that clause (section 17 of the act) the minister is able by regulation to add the Ministry of Finance to the list of authorities entitled to apply for and receive the search results of a search of the register, to obtain beneficial ownership information and then do with it according to law. And under the Register of Beneficial Ownership Act, any authority that has international obligations is able to comply with a search conducted under subsection 6, which shall not be executed without certification that the request for the search is proper and lawful and in compliance with the legislation governing the affairs of the authority making a request and any international agreement administered by it,” Bethel said addressing the Senate yesterday.
“So under the act, all that is required – and the minister has found to do so – to regulate the accessibility of the system, is to designate the Ministry of Finance as the authority able to get that and then to perform its international obligations. So this will only take the preparation of regulations, the signing of the same by the substantive minister of finance and the gazetting of it and that can take place all within 24 hours or less. I’ve already had discussions with the Law Reform Commission, they accept my interpretation of the powers of the minister and are drafting the regulations as we speak. So the point is I can affirmatively say that the Ministry of Finance in a matter of less than 24 hours will be in a position to fully comply with its international obligations.”
Bethel was addressing the revelation by Auditor General Terrance Bastian in a recent audit report that the government did not provide the names of the beneficial owners of the companies that were paid more than $63 million from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) $250 million rapid financing instrument to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bethel said the auditor general could have revealed the names of the companies if he wanted to and because of how small The Bahamas is, the owners would have been apparent from the names of their companies alone.
“The company names were supplied to the auditor general and it was open to the auditor general to have listed those names in the report, but he didn’t. Let me say that this is a small country and everybody knows who’s in the business. You only need to see the name of that company and you know who the beneficial ownership is or at least their competitors do,” he said.
“And if your competitors do, it won’t be long before everybody else knows. But that’s only an observation, it’s his report, he has the constitutional authority and he did it in a way that he could have complied best with what the law was, so I don’t criticize him for it.”
Bethel insisted the matter is being addressed forthwith. “I want to assure the Bahamian people today and the Ministry of Finance that it is being addressed and the Ministry of Finance will in very short order be able to provide the necessary information consistent with its international obligations,” he said.
Policy recommendations attached to the RFI included that a third-party audit be conducted and published, including the names of the beneficial owners of companies awarded pandemic-related contracts.
The post AG: Regulations being drafted to make MoF compliant appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/ag-regulations-being-drafted-to-make-mof-compliant/
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