Pakistan to be out of FATF’s grey list

Islamabad will strictly implement the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in order to get out of the money laundering grey list released by the Paris-based body, a senior official of State Bank of Pakistan said recently. FATF had previously placed Pakistan on its watch list of countries that need to do more in relation to anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. “The FATF challenge has to be addressed. Pakistan has mandated upon itself to enforce the FATF plan in letter and spirit. Whatever the requirements about the FATF plan are, they will be implemented and Pakistan will be out of grey list by September 2019, said Syed Irfan Ali, executive director for Banking Policy and Regulation Group at the State Bank of Pakistan. The FATF is an inter-governmental organisation comprising 37 members including two regional organizations.
Its recommendations are considered to be of international standard for steps required for anti-money laundering and combating terror financing. The criterion for listing countries by the FATF is on the basis of their compliance with transparent guidelines and their effective implementation. In addition, the incentive of being removed from the list on the basis of even a gradual response, has led to desired results. It is only in case of the refusal of a government to implement guidelines and provide an assurance to undertake corrective measures that the FATF recommends strong measures. However, before the FATF meeting in February 2018, the US State Department expressed its resolve to present a resolution for placing Pakistan in the terror financing watch list for its failure to reign in Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JUD) and Falah-i-Insaniyat (FIF) in pursuance of the UNSC Resolution 1267.
Pakistan had raised its concerns with the Asia Pacific Group in June last year over India’s negative attitude and its intentions to hurt Pakistan’s interests, but no action was taken regarding re-composition of the Joint Group. Similar concerns were also raised with the FATF Secretariat and ICRG co-chairs on the sidelines of the FATF Plenary of February 2019. Having that said, Pakistan indeed intensified its ongoing crackdown against the banned organisations and took control of several seminaries and assets of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation. The confiscation of properties of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) came after Pakistan formally placed the proscribed organisations in the list of banned organisations. According to updated list of Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), the JuD and FIF were among 70 organisations proscribed by the ministry of interior under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
At least two seminaries and property belonging to proscribed JuD and FIF were taken over by the government in a fresh crackdown launched by the law enforcement agencies under the National Action Plan (NAP). Major actions were taken in Chakwal and Attock districts after the additional chief secretary of the Punjab province in a meeting with commissioners and divisional police heads via a video link directed the officials concerned to take over the property, it said. In a subsequent operation, the seminaries of JuD in Chakwal – Madrassa Khalid Bin Waleed in the Talagang area and Madrassa Darus Salam on Chakwal’s Railway Road – along with their staff were placed at the disposal of the Auqaf Department. Following the Punjab government’s directives, the administrators were appointed at the seminaries to take over their control. The management and operational control of the properties were taken over by the district administration of Attock.