Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar has ruled out the chances regarding Pakistan’s placement on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist. Addressing a press conference soon after the announcement of keeping Pakistan on the grey list by FAFT, the minister said that the international community had lauded the efforts of Pakistan. “We have completed 26 out of 27 points. The earlier action plan was difficult. The second plan given to us was about money laundering,” he said, adding that they would complete the remaining points of action plan very soon.
He said FAFT had lauded efforts by the government, adding that the government had passed 17 laws regarding money laundering. “Today the situation has changed. It is not the same as it was two years before. Seven points regarding money laundering are remaining and we will complete them soon,” the minister said.
The FATF had accepted that Pakistan completed 90 percent of work of its action plan and there is no option to place the country on its blacklist, said the minister, adding that Pakistan is complying with the guidelines in light of the FATF action plan despite facing a tough situation and disasters of the coronavirus pandemic.
Hammad Azhar said Pakistan had successfully overcome the challenges and those making conspiracies to push the country to the FATF blacklist had failed again. He said that the motives of India against Pakistan were not hidden anymore and the internal issues of the neighbouring country are now exposed before the world as well. He said that India is also funding terrorists.
“The grey list is called the enhanced monitoring list in terms of FATF and many countries are currently residing on the list alongside Pakistan. FATF checks financial statements of almost all of the countries across the globe and each state will be checked on the basis of the different action plans,” he said.
The federal minister further said that a dual-action plan was being heard by FATF for Pakistan as a 2017 action plan was also being implemented. He said that Pakistan had timely formulated the rules and the implementation work of the FATF action plan would be completed this year. Earlier, FATF released its report on the assessment of Pakistani steps taken to deliver on its promises to resolve the global community concerns over how financial matters were handled in Pakistan which the watchdog has commended.
