Madam Speaker,
I rise in support of the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2026. Allow me first to send greetings to the people of Cat Island, whom I have the privilege of representing.
This is a narrow Bill with broad consequences.
Its two clauses close a gap between what The Bahamas has committed to internationally and what our law is able to deliver.
I want to set out why that gap carries real risk for this country, and why it should be closed now.
We should begin with an honest assessment of the world as it is.
The international order that small states rely on is under real strain. Major powers are more willing to act alone. Trade, finance and technology are increasingly used as instruments of pressure. Institutions that once seemed permanent are being tested.
For a country like ours, the strategic conclusion is clear.
We cannot shape the choices of great powers. We can make sure that the rules that still hold are upheld consistently, and above all, by those who depend on them most.
The Bahamas joined the United Nations in September 1973, weeks after independence. In accepting the Charter, we accepted Article 25, under which member states agree to carry out the decisions of the Security Council.
Article 41 allows the Council to impose measures short of armed force, including the interruption of economic and financial relations. Targeted financial sanctions are such measures. Adopted under Chapter VII, they bind every member state equally.
There is a practical dimension to this, Madam Speaker.
Our legal system is dualist. A Council decision has no force in our courts until Parliament gives it effect. The credibility of our commitment is therefore only as strong as the legislation behind it.
Resolution 1737, adopted unanimously in December 2006, requires all states to freeze the funds, financial assets and economic resources of persons and entities designated in connection with nuclear and ballistic missile programmes of proliferation concern.
It requires states to ensure that no funds are made available to them. It established a sanctions committee to maintain the list, with procedures permitting the release of frozen funds for basic expenses such as food, rent and legal fees, following notification to that committee.
Resolution 2231, adopted in July 2015, replaced much of that framework, maintained its own list of individuals and entities subject to asset freezes, and included a mechanism for reapplying the earlier measures.
That mechanism was used in September 2025, and the measures first imposed under resolution 1737 were restored.
Our law must capture designations under both resolutions and be able to follow the regime as it evolves.
Madam Speaker,
The architecture of our sanctions regime under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2018 rests on a single definition in section 2, that of a “designated person or entity”.
The obligations flow from it. Funds and assets held for a designated person must be frozen without delay and without prior notice.
No person in The Bahamas may make funds, assets or financial services available to them, directly or indirectly. Holdings and attempted transactions must be reported to the competent authorities, and breaches carry criminal liability.
Those obligations extend to every individual and business in The Bahamas, not only to licensed banks.
Clause 2 amends the definition. It removes the word “and” at the end of paragraph (d), deletes the existing paragraphs (e) and (f), and substitutes three new paragraphs.
Paragraph (e) captures any individual, entity or state designated under resolution 1737.
Paragraph (f) does the same for resolution 2231.
The reference to a “state” is deliberate. Council designations can extend to state organs and state-owned enterprises, and our definition needs to reach them.
Paragraph (g) carries the greatest practical weight. It captures persons designated under any future Security Council resolution imposing targeted financial sanctions on proliferation financing.
I recognise that some Members will ask whether this cedes too much to the Council.
It does not. Parliament sets the policy, and it does so in this Bill: The Bahamas will freeze the assets of those the Council designates in this field. The Council identifies the targets.
That division of labour is an operational necessity. The Financial Action Task Force defines “without delay” as, ideally, within hours. A regime that required new legislation for each designation would fail that standard by months.
Clause 1 deems the Act to have been in force from 2nd August 2019.
Retrospective provisions deserve scrutiny, and this one withstands it.
It creates no offence for past conduct. It provides legal certainty for freezing and reporting actions taken in good faith by our authorities and institutions since that date.
Sound regulation should never penalise those who complied early.
Madam Speaker, the first purpose of this Bill is straightforward. The Bahamas is fulfilling its international obligations and commitments.
In financial services, credibility functions as capital. It is accumulated slowly, through consistent conduct, and it can be drawn down quickly.
Recommendation 7 of the FATF Standards requires every jurisdiction to implement targeted financial sanctions on proliferation financing fully and without delay.
Since October 2020, Recommendation 1 has required countries and private institutions to assess their proliferation financing risk.
Immediate Outcome 11 tests effectiveness: whether assets are in fact identified and frozen, and whether the private sector understands its obligations.
As a member of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, The Bahamas will be assessed on all three.
A deficiency in our core definition would be recorded, and it would be read closely by every correspondent bank and counterparty that does business with us.
We know the cost of such findings. After The Bahamas was grey-listed in 2018, correspondent banks reassessed their exposure, compliance costs rose across the sector, and those costs were ultimately borne by Bahamian households and businesses.
It took sustained effort across administrations to secure our removal in December 2020.
Financial services remain one of the two pillars of our economy. Protecting the credibility of the sector protects the jobs and incomes that depend on it.
The second purpose responds to a changed environment. There is no doubt that we are living in an era of new threats and evolved threats.
Madam Speaker,
We should be clear-eyed about what has changed.
Proliferation financing is structurally different from terrorist financing. Transactions are often commercial in appearance. Values vary widely. The objective is procurement of materials and technology over time. Networks operate through front companies with ownership layered across multiple jurisdictions. Dual-use components are acquired in fragments and assembled elsewhere. National authorities and United Nations experts have documented state-linked actors stealing digital assets on a very large scale to finance weapons programmes.
The maritime dimension has evolved in parallel. Vessels disable their automatic identification systems, change names and flags in rapid succession, register with fraudulent documentation and transfer cargo between ships at sea, beyond the reach of port inspection.
Risk of this kind migrates to wherever oversight is weakest.
That has direct implications for The Bahamas. We operate one of the largest ship registries in the world. We regulate digital asset businesses under the DARE Act, 2024. Our international financial centre supports trust companies, investment funds and corporate service providers with clients worldwide.
These are national strengths, built over decades. Their resilience depends on our law keeping pace with the Council’s designations, so that no part of our system is available to those seeking to evade them.
This Bill delivers that alignment. Every designation the Council makes in this field will carry immediate legal effect here.
The Bahamas Maritime Authority, the Securities Commission, the Central Bank, the Financial Intelligence Unit and every reporting institution will work from one clear and current definition. In a period of heightened risk, that certainty is a form of protection.
Madam Speaker, I thank the Office of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, our regulators and the Financial Intelligence Unit for their work on this measure. I also acknowledge the compliance professionals in our private sector, who carry much of the day-to-day burden of implementation.
National security and the integrity of our financial system have long been shared priorities in this House. I invite Members opposite to support this Bill on that basis.
The Bahamas cannot determine the direction of global events. We can determine the strength and reliability of our own institutions.
This Bill strengthens them, it honours the commitment we made to the United Nations in 1973, and it protects the people of The Bahamas in a more uncertain world.
Madam Speaker, I commend the Bill to the House, and I thank you.