OPPOSITION dominated Senate rejected on Wednesday Anti-money laundering (Second Amendment) Bill and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Waqf Properties Bill with voice vote. These Bills have been passed by National Assembly. The opposition lawmakers have justified their move by saying that Leader of the House Senator Dr. Waseem Shazad has made remake , telling the fact on record that Pakistan was put on FATF greylist before PTI came to power due to bad policies of the previous governments. It is not justifiable to insist on retracting such remarks for EXTENDING parliamentary support on legislations of national importance with international dimension. It should not have been made a matter of self-esteem.
Pakistan is A responsible member of the United Nations. It is in the national interest to pass legislations and enforce them to effectively curb the twin menace of money laundering and terror financing in accordance with the sanctions included in the UNSC resolutions numbering 1267 and 1373. The country is on the greylist and complete compliance of 27 points action plan of FATF is required to enable it get off the greylist, failing which there may a possibility of moving it to blacklist to which the Prime Minister has alluded in his tweet, while responding to rejection OF Anti-money laundering (Amendment Bill) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Waqf Property Bill. He is right to say that opposition has adopted a self-serving stance at the expanse of national interest and they want to have Pakistan on the blacklist, which WILL create problems for the country in dealing with the multilateral donor agencies against which the IMF representative in Pakistan, Teres Daban Sanchez had cautioned, while speaking at seminar at the Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad last year. Earlier, in a tweet on Sunday Information Minister said that opposition has tried to make a bargain during negotiation with government on FATF related legislations. The media talk of the leader of opposition Shabaz Sharif after meeting with JUI (F) Central Amir Maulan Fazlu Rehman on Tuesday corroborates the point of view of the Prime Minister and Information Minister. The remarks of the leader of house in Senate cannot be repudiated if looked into the context of subject matter of the lambasting statement of former Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal against FATF in February 2018, when the international watchdog on money laundering and terror financing had given four months to PML-N government to start a process for making the Anti-money laundering and counter terrorism regimes robust.
