Pakistan is committed to completing the action plan of FATF's International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) by June 2020, said Minister for Economic Affairs Division Hammad Azhar.
The FATF has allowed four months period till February 2020 to complete the action plan; however, Hammad Azhar speaking at a news conference stated, "We will maintain the present momentum and try to complete ICRG action plan tentatively by June 2020. Our priority is to complete the ICRG action plan." The minister termed it challenging and ambitious task because of higher compliance threshold for Pakistan as opposed to other countries due to risk factors. He said that the country remained on front line in war against terror and therefore its compliance threshold is higher owing to risk factors.
The minister stated that the biggest success of Pakistani delegation in the plenary meeting at Paris was to prevent merger of Asian Pacific Group (APG) and ICRG action plan. The minister added if APG and FATF International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) action plans were merged, it could have been over 100 action points and time period for their compliance could have also been reduced.
He said that Pakistani delegation's first responsibility was to prevent merger of APG and ICRG actions plan which was neither logical, nor doable. He said their merger was not in the interest of Pakistan and due to Pakistani delegation's efforts finally a decision was taken that Pakistan would have full observation period of APG till October 2020. The minister continued if after that there was a need of action plan, Pakistan may be allowed between one to three years period for the action plan.
The minister added there was urgency about compliance with 27 actions plan of ICRG in the country and the present government in January 2019 negotiated a 15-month time period and started implementation on them. In January 2019, 25 actions out of total 27 action items were included in the non-compliance category, which in September 2019 reduced from 25 to five action items with five fully complete and 17 partially complete of the total 37 action plan, he added.
The government's priority is ICRG action plan which is an ambitious and challenging task because Pakistan's compliance threshold is being kept higher as compared to other countries due to risk factor, the minister said, adding this is the reason that on average a country needs two-and-a-half-year time period to comply with action plan to get out of the grey list and some countries even take four years.
He said that the progress achieved during the last six months included; Pakistan terror financing and money laundering risk was updated, inter agency coordination mechanism was established, risk based supervisory framework and dissuasive sanction regime was put in place and law enforcement agencies risk based strategy was developed. Now it is time for their implementation and during implementation, over 700 terror financing investigations were initiated and over 64,000 non-profit organizations' mapping was done.
The minister said that FATF secretariat is being set up with dedicated standalone officials and they would only look after FATF related issues. He said that dedicated cells have been set up in all the departments dealing with the FATF with dedicated human resources and officials. Suspicious transaction generation, analysis and dissemination have been improved. He said that Pakistan's progress was acknowledged on 22 partially completed action plan during the plenary meeting.
He said that FATF plan is an opportunity for the country to enhance capacity of the institutions and put in place a mechanism against money laundering and terrorism.
The minister also acknowledged the role of Foreign Office, Interior Ministry, FMU, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and Pakistan armed forces to achieve the progress. He said decisions of FATF are taken on technical basis with consensus and Pakistan has raised concerns with regard to India effectively.
The minister said that it is repeatedly mentioned in joint group report that Pakistan made significant progress on FATF compliance, particularly during the last four months. He said that FATF proceedings are highly confidential and many countries other than those reported in the media have supported Pakistan at the plenary meeting and many western, European and developed countries have appreciated the progress made by Pakistan on FATF action plan. The APG report recently published was based on assessment of October 2018 and it does not cover the period of the last ten months, added the minister. He stated that steps are being taken to regularize Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) and others unregulated sectors.
The minister added that there has been significant increase in FMU suspicious transaction report during the last ten months. He said the country needs to improve trans-national risks and FBR as well as customs are required to work more effectively against cash couriers.
He said that deficiencies in APG reports have been addressed during the last ten months and considerable work has been done in inter agency and report from the provinces was satisfactory.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
Comments
Comments are closed.