Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday questioned the decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to keep Pakistan on its “increased monitoring list”, widely known as the grey list after the country completed 26 out of the 27 points under the action plan given to it by the financial watchdog.

The FATF, after a five-day plenary meeting, appreciated Pakistan’s progress and efforts to address items on its country action plan and announced to keep the country on its grey list till it addressed “the one remaining CFT-related item”.

It has also handed the government six new anti-money laundering areas to work on.

“The FATF encourages Pakistan to continue to make progress to address as soon as possible the one remaining Countering Finance of Terrorism (CFT)-related item by demonstrating that Terror Financing investigations and prosecutions target senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups,” FATF President Marcus Pleyer said.

In response to the FATF announcement, Qureshi said, “it is to be determined whether FATF is a political forum or a technical one and whether it is being used to achieve political objectives.”

The foreign minister said that as far as the issue of addressing the FATF’s action plan is concerned, Pakistan has completed work on 26 points and added: “Significant progress has been made on the 27th point and we intend to do more.”

“In my view, in such a situation, there is no reason to keep Pakistan on the grey list,” he said.

He regretted that some forces want the sword to continue hanging over Pakistan.

Pakistan, he said, is taking steps in its own interest. “What is our interest? Our interest is to curb money laundering and terror financing and whatever is in our interest we will continue to do so.”

New six-point action plan

Addressing a press conference after the plenary meeting concluded in Paris, FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer had said that Pakistan remains under “increased monitoring”.

“The Pakistani government has made substantial progress in making its counter-terrorist financing systems stronger and more effective. It has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018,” he said.

The FATF president had highlighted that Pakistan has “made improvements” after the Asia Pacific Group highlighted issues in 2019 during its assessment of Pakistan’s entire anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing system.

“However Pakistan is still failing to effectively implement the global FATF standards across a number of areas. This means the risks of money laundering remains high which in turn can fuel corruption and organised crime,” he had stated.

Dr Player had said that this is why the FATF has worked with the Pakistan government on new areas that still need to be improved as part of a new action plan that largely focuses on money laundering risks.