Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue on Tuesday approved to make amendments in the Anti-Money laundering Bill and Foreign Exchange Regulations Bill to comply with FATF recommendations.

The amendment never went smoot in the opposition-majority committee, as they stifled the recommendation of the government to retain physical movement of the dollar not more than 10,000 within the country.

Alongside the committee refused to amend in the detention period of money laundering which the government via financial team suggested for 10 years at least, while the current law for such criminals remains in-between 1–10 years.

The committee was head by Senator Farook H. Naik.

Meanwhile, Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq of PML-N showed much concerned and severely came against the recommendations — which were reading to limit the physical movement of dollar to 10k within the country and proposing a 10-year sentence for money laundering.

Although in the interval Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch and Additional Secretary Kamran Afzal requested that — rigid actions are mandatory for retaining money laundering.

The Finance team of the view that militants could easily transfer huge amounts of foreign currency in cash that was why this amendment was necessary to be approved.

Still, the Finance team didn’t succeed to approve these two points. —  The committee members of the view that the authorities were going beyond what had been expected by the FATF from Pakistan.

It is not all that, besides having the majority of opposition members the committee declared the money laundering as a cognizable offense that means that an officer has the power to arrest anybody at any time without a warrant from a judicial magistrate.

It is germane to recollect that the main concern of the FATF is to ensure compliance by Pakistan related to the implementation of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws

To be noted, on October 19, FATF sustained Pakistan in the gray list and asked to fulfill its action plan in the next month. Amongst one of the commitments in completing its actions, involve:

“demonstrating that authorities are identifying cash couriers and enforcing controls on the illicit movement of currency”

Meanwhile, the draft laws would now go to the Senate for approval and then sent back to the National Assembly for reconsideration.