Barbados lawmaker Gline Clarke is concerned about the image of his country and said that, while the government wants to attract foreign direct investment, it must guard against money laundering and other financial crimes.
Clarke told Parliament that, while Barbados may be seen as a good place to do business in the international arena, he cautioned that the requisite measures must be taken to “ensure the protection of our economy and the Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention and Control Bill) now being debated in Parliament is therefore very important.”
He added, “In the banking institution, if you deposit more than $10,000 in any bank, you have to say where this money came from and this has been introduced for a while now. Mechanisms had to be put in place in order to ensure that persons who are depositing or withdrawing large sums of money will say what they plan to do with the money.”
He said that Barbados has a good civil service and the Central Bank has good regulations, and pointed out that Barbados as far as the international standard is concerned is really doing extremely well and Bajans must be proud of “where we have come from and what we have achieved”.
Clarke stressed that “we must protect our economy and whatever has to be done we have to protect the good name that we have got over a number of years”.
