Terrorism | AL approves ‘asset freezing’ law, legislator questions timing

Pereira Coutinho

The Legislative Assembly (AL) approved in the first reading the draft legislation that aims to comply with a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
In a plenary meeting held yesterday, with 29 votes in favor, lawmakers unanimously approved the draft, which the government requested to be considered by the AL as a matter of urgency.
There was not much of a debate over the draft legislation presented to the plenary by the Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan. It took only a few minutes of discussion before voting began.
The only lawmaker who raised any concerns was Pereira Coutinho, who expressed his disappointment over the Secretary’s intervention, and requested further details about what the government had done since 2007, when the problem was first detected.
“According to the 2007 report there were several areas targeted for action and where the government should have taken action. Can you tell us what the status of this is?” Pereira Coutinho asked, giving several examples cited in the joint evaluation report (MER) from the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APGML) and from the Group of International Finance Centre Supervisors (GIFCS) that in 2007 detected flaws in Macau’s legal system and suggested

Sonia Chan

corrections in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
On the government side, the answer came from the representative of the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF) who said, “the government took good note of the suggestions and has established an interdepartmental task force that works in accordance with those requirements,” adding that “cash declarations and inspections of such are one of the tasks that they have been performing.”
The representative of GIF also said that “there is currently an established level of monetary transaction that will raise alerts to follow up on the case.” The official did not want to reveal the amount, stating that it was not “convenient” for the work in progress, and adding that “through our database we are also investigating allegations of money laundering at customs’ points. Recently ‘green channels’ were created as a first approach to address these needs.” She concluded by saying that “there is a need for the revision of the law regarding ‘cash declarations’.”
The draft legislation, presented by Secretary Chan yesterday, proposes several mechanisms to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. These mechanisms include the freezing of assets, protection of third parties, provision of information to various government entities as well as guarantees of fair treatment and defense mechanisms that allow the people or legal entities in question to make proper appeals.
The UNSC resolution documents issued between 1998 and 2006 set requirements for governments to pay close attention to their prevention of “money laundering” and the control over the flow of assets (including cash and precious items) that can be used to finance terrorism on several levels, as well as over imports and exports.
Since Macau does not have any specific regulations to prevent these problems there was an urgent need to draft legislation to comply with these instructions.
On the sidelines of the plenary meeting, lawmaker Pereira Coutinho said, “I expected much more from the government. This is mere ‘candy’ that the government is trying to give to the UNSC to comply with the need to compile a report on this matter within the year. If the government was working seriously on these issues as they’ve said, cases like Dore would not have happened,” he said while exiting the plenary room.