The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has been scrutinising Pakistan’s compliance report on two action plans and a total of eight points in its ongoing plenary meeting held in Paris.
The FATF’s plenary meeting is likely to keep Pakistan on the grey list despite making progress on certain points, including amending the Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) law for ensuring international cooperation.
“Despite making progress on new action plans having seven points, the FATF has not conducted onsite visit, so the possibility of exclusion from the grey list is out of the question,” top official sources said on Wednesday.
The FATF plenary will be concluded today (Thursday) and FATF President will address a press briefing to announce the decisions.
Pakistani officials say that out of seven action plans placed by FATF, Islamabad submitted its progress report and claimed progress on all points. “We expect that the plenary will accept a few points and will declare compliant or largely compliant on a few of them,” said the official.
On the last point of the first action plan out of 27 points, Pakistan was asked to show progress on the prosecution against UN-designated outfits and their affiliated associates. Pakistan has shared progress on this front in the past and now shared specific number of people who were prosecuted.
The FATF may not show its satisfaction over this point.
The FATF plenary held last July had kept Pakistan on the grey list and simultaneously handed over another action plan comprising a total of seven points to implement them in order to avoid falling into the blacklist.
PAKISTAN’S CLAIM: Meanwhile, thefinance ministry has said Pakistan implemented all the 27 points proposed by the FATF after which there is no justification for the international watchdog to continue keeping the country on grey list.
Sources in the ministry said that Pakistan had fully complied with the terms of the FATF and “now we are waiting for the decision of the FATF, which is expected on Thursday”.
“The 100 percent compliance report submitted by Pakistan states that Pakistan has completed the implementation of the remaining last point,” a source said. “The decision to remove from or retain the name on the grey list will now be based on the progress [report],” the sources added.
Speaking about the progress report, the sources said that about 150 people had been convicted in money laundering cases, while Pakistan had overcome the terrorism financing issue. Besides, there had not been any major terrorist incident in the country for quite some time.
In addition, law had been amended to punish those involved in money laundering, while recently the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had been given the power to freeze suspected bank accounts. Also there had been progress in monitoring professions such as real estate, lawyers, accountants, etc.
