Jamaican Senate approves anti-terrorism Bills

THE Senate on Friday approved three Bills which will improve Jamaica’s ability to counteract terrorist threats at the global level, with full support from both the Government and the Opposition.
The three Bills are: The Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Act, 2019; The Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act, 2019; and the United Nations Security Council Resolutions Implementation (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Leader of Government Business, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith said that all three pieces of legislation are required to protect Jamaica’s financial sector and the country’s ability to engage the international financial system in a way that is positive, progressive, safe and secure.

“One that not only protects our business but plays a part in protecting the global financial system; which seeks to end money laundering or reduce it, making it too risky for us to become a location for that to happen; as well as, of course, to reduce the correspondent banking risks which we have been ex-periencing across the Caribbean region,” she noted.

Opposition Senator K D Knight welcomed the Bills as a positive development, and commended the Government and Johnson Smith, who is also minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, for bringing them to Parliament.

“I must commend the minister on the way in which these important Bills were presented…and I commend the Government for taking this important step,” he added.

The Bills, which were passed in the House of Representatives recently, will now be gazetted to become law.