Daily Times

Members of the former PTI cabinet Friday hailed the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) announcement that Pakistan had met all 34 items on two separate action plans. Soon after the development, PTI Chairman former prime minister Imran Khan said, “FATF repeatedly praised the work and political will my govt demonstrated”. He said when his government came to power [in 2018], it faced the “direct prospect of blacklisting” by the body, adding that the country’s compliance history with the FATF was also not favourable. “I constituted a FATF Coordination Committee headed by key minister Hammad Azhar. The committee had representation from all government departments and security agencies relevant to our FATF action plan.

The officers worked day and night in the first instance to avoid blacklisting. “FATF repeatedly praised the work and the political will my government demonstrated. We not only averted blacklisting, but also completed 32 out of 34 action items. We submitted a compliance report on the remaining two items in April based on which FATF now declared Pakistan’s Action Plan as completed,” he said, says a news report. Imran expressed confidence that the FATF’s on-site visit would also be a success. He lauded Azhar, saying the former energy minister, members of his FATF coordination committee and relevant officers had “performed exceptionally well”.

“The whole country is proud of you,” he said.

Hammad Azhar shared a picture of himself standing with officers, saying that Pakistan’s hard work on completing the 34-action items was a result of the “teamwork of officers that worked day and night in different government departments. They are the real heroes!”

Prior to the announcement, PTI’s Senator Ejaz Chaudhry had expressed hope that Pakistan would exit the grey list, terming it the result of the Imran Khan-led government’s work. Meanwhile, the PML-N’s official Twitter account criticised the PTI government for diplomatically isolating Pakistan due to which it faced various economic sanctions. It added that now, however, the nations of the world had agreed to restore relations and the world’s confidence in Pakistan was being restored.

PPP leader and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar was questioned on how much credit she would give the PTI government over the development, to which she said: “Whoever wants to take credit can do so. Our job is to work for Pakistan; we will continue to work and we don’t care about who gets the credit and who doesn’t.” Responding to her statement, PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry recalled that Khar was among those lawmakers who had refused to vote in favour of passing FATF-related bills in 2020 because “they said we will vote for these bills only if you end money laundering cases against Zardari and Sharif”.

PTI leader and former special assistant to the prime minister on political communication Shehbaz Gill criticised the incumbent government and said that while the economy is suffering because of its policies, the nation is also hearing some “good news” because of the efforts of the previous government. He was referring to Pakistan’s status on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list and said that the previous government had to make some tough decisions to get off the list. “To that end, Imran Khan formed a team under the leadership of Hammad Azhar and after constantly working hard for three years, Pakistan is on its way to being removed from the FATF grey list now,” Gill said. Taking a jibe at the Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Gill said the so-called “Ahsan Aristotle” cannot claim the credit for getting Pakistan off the grey list.

“President Arif Alvi had already written a letter to the chief justice of Pakistan in this regard,” he maintained, adding that the credit for this achievement solely goes to the PTI-led government and Imran Khan and no one else.