Daily Times

No doubt the fight against the coronavirus demands much of the government’s attention as well as resources, but that makes it all the more important to make sure Pakistan is able to get off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey this June. FATF is scheduled to review Pakistan’s performance during its meetings with the Eurasia Group (EAG) from June 21 to 26, and unless there is substantial progress on all 27 points we could well be pushed to the black list by October. Previously, Pakistan was able to successfully meet only 14 targets till February, leaving much work to be done about the rest. That is why Islamabad was given a four month grace period, which has about one month left. Failure is not an option, of course, because we’d be sanctioned and driven right out of the international lending and borrowing market, with catastrophic consequences.

Government officials have already started telling the press, on condition of anonymity of course, that while they’ve taken all sorts of right steps in the right direction and all that, there is still some crucial work that could not be done because of the coronavirus. No denying, of course, that the pandemic has been the number-one concern of late and it has caused a lot of resources to be diverted from here to there. But that explanation might not wash with the watchdog. That is because the coronavirus is a very recent disturbance, especially in Pakistan, and if timely action had been taken the right results would have started showing by now.

It would be unfair to say that Pakistan has done nothing to check money laundering and terror financing over the last many months. We are, after all, one of the countries hardest hit by terrorism, as our record of 80,000 or so needless deaths practically shouts out. That is why it is important that our efforts to clamp down on everything even remotely related to terrorism are noted and appreciated. And since this is, from the looks of things, the last chance for a clearance from FATF, and our friends from across the eastern border have been bending over backwards to make sure we don’t get it, the situation could not possibly be any more critical. For its part, FATF will also have to make sure that political rivalries are not allowed to influence the verdict. *