Pakistan Expresses Commitment To Continue To Comply With FATF’s Action Plan

(@fidahassanain)

Pakistan expresses commitment to continue to comply with FATF’s action plan

The Ministry of Finance says that enormous work had been done to strengthen its anti-money laundering regime and address the strategic counter-terrorist financing related deficiencies.

ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Feb 26th, 2021) Pakistan once again expressed its commitment to keep continuing strengthening the AML/CFT regime in accordance with global standards and comply with the FATF's action plan.

The Ministry of Finance in its statement said that enormous work had been done to strengthen its anit-money laundering regime and address the strategic counter-terrorist financing related deficiencies.

The statement came after Financial Action Task Force (FATF) lauded Pakistan for significant action plan. FATF said that Pakistan addressed 24 out of the 27 items in the action plan. Pakistan also did significant progress in addressing remaining 3 action items which also stand partially addressed.

However, Pakistan would remain still on the grey list until June.

The Global watchdog held virtually from February 22-25, 2021 where its members discussed a range of topics related to Pakistan’s progress.

Federal Minister for Industries and Production Muhammad Hammad Azhar who is also chairman of FATF Coordination committee/Federal Minister for Industries and Production and attended by senior officers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NACTA, the FMU, the National FATF Secretariat and other key stakeholders.

FATF on Thursday said that Pakistan would remain under “increased monitoring” when it comes to terror financing. Therefore, it said, it would remain on the grey list until June 2021.

FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer while speaking through a live video link said that FATF recognizes Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts but there still some serious deficiencies that the country needed to address.

“Some serious deficiencies are still there. Three out of 27 are still need to be addressed,” said Dr. Marcus Pleyer. He urged Pakistan to work on all remaining items that it had committed to and ensure all its requirements, pointi gout that FATF would once again review Pakistan’s efforts in June 2021.

“The body does not look at single incidents but takes a look at the entire framework [in order to decide its fate],” the President said.

He said that risk tof Pakistan being put on the blacklist was still there. The country must continue to work on outstanding action points to fix its financial monitoring mechanisms.

“The deadline for Pakistan to meet 27 conditions had expired,” said FATF President, urging Pakistani authorities to ramp up their efforts in dealing with the items.

Back in October 2020, the FATF had acknowledged that of the 27 conditions that were put forth to Pakistan, 21 had been fulfilled while six were left.

According to a local tv, at that time, Dr Pleyer had said that once the remaining six conditions are fulfilled, an "on-site visit" will be approved under which a team from the FATF will visit the country for the next review. “We are continuously holding discussions and the members decided by consensus that Pakistan still needs to complete these six items for an onsite visit to be granted,” he further said.

Fida Hussnain

Fida Hussnain is a lahore based journalist. He writes on politics, religion, social issues and climate change. He is also a research fellow at University of Gujrat.