The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sup­port­ed the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Bill, 2025, in the Sen­ate on Fri­day night.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie pledged the es­tab­lish­ment of an over­sight com­mit­tee as the Sen­ate unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved the bill. “I took a note on the point that there is a need for us to de­vel­op some sort of work­ing group to over­see this leg­is­la­tion. Of course, you know that I don’t prac­tice on the crim­i­nal side, so my ex­pe­ri­ence would be on the civ­il side. But we have prob­lems on the civ­il side as well. I am go­ing to com­mit again to this house this evening to do some­thing about the rules and the leg­is­la­tion and about set­ting up an over­sight com­mit­tee to deal with the prob­lems as they arise,” Je­re­mie said.

He al­so com­mend­ed the tone of the de­bate. “Mr Pres­i­dent, I want to thank each and every one of the mem­bers of the Sen­ate this evening for what has been an un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly civ­il and pro­duc­tive de­bate. Now, when I say ‘each and every mem­ber of the Sen­ate’, what I al­ways mean is the in­de­pen­dent bench ex­clud­ed, be­cause the in­de­pen­dent bench is by de­f­i­n­i­tion civ­il. It is my col­leagues’ op­po­site who some­times en­gage in com­bat. There was no com­bat this af­ter­noon.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates said she en­tered the de­bate in the spir­it of co­op­er­a­tion. “Now I’m not here to­day to ex­co­ri­ate the Gov­ern­ment. I am en­ter­ing this de­bate in the spir­it of co­op­er­a­tion be­cause, Mr Pres­i­dent, I recog­nise the im­por­tance of this bill. The gov­ern­ment very com­mend­ably has brought, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions FATF Com­pli­ance Bill, to amend 13 oth­er bills, and that’s no easy task. And in an era with il­lic­it fi­nan­cial flows, no fi­nan­cial sys­tem can rest on its lau­rels. We need to act.”

When asked by Guardian Me­dia why the PNM sup­port­ed the bill, Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness Dr Amery Browne said, “This Op­po­si­tion has said that we would sup­port good law and re­sist bad law. On re­view of the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Bill, which came be­fore the Sen­ate this week, we found it to be sound and vot­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.”

All 30 sen­a­tors vot­ed in favour, with no ab­sten­tions and none against.

The Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Bill, 2025, in­tro­duced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, in­cor­po­rates Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force rec­om­men­da­tions to counter the fi­nanc­ing of weapons of mass de­struc­tion. As it re­lat­ed to the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions FATF Com­pli­ance Bill 2025, the PNM ab­stained as they did in the Low­er House.