ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has successfully made progress on 26 points of the action plan given by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as an international cooperation review group met on Tuesday virtually to examine the implementation process.
According to media reports, the FATF had asked Pakistan to implement the 27-point action plan and the review group with China, United States, United Kingdom, France, and India will review Pakistan’s progress on the watchdog’s recommendations.
“Any decision on pulling Pakistan out of the grey list or maintaining it on the list will be motivated by political grounds,” sources said, adding that the review group’s report on progress made by Pakistan will be tabled before the FATF Plenary meeting that is scheduled to take place from June 21.
The sources said that Pakistan had made progress on 24 points of the action plan during the last FATF meeting; however, this time only a single point is left out without implementation.
Earlier this month, Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar said that according to the mutual evaluation report (MER) on technical compliance, Pakistan has achieved a compliant rating in 31 out of 40 FATF recommendations. He explained: “This is the parallel scrutiny being undertaken at FATF, besides the government’s current action plan.”
He said that upgrading 20 criteria in less than two years is unprecedented in the FATF history for any country, and Pakistan is the first country to ensure compliance with 31 recommendations. “This outcome is a result of major legal reforms (14 federal + 3 provincial laws with corresponding regulations). It is also due to the untiring efforts of the entire FATF team (20 ministries plus organisations),” he added.
Earlier in February, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had released its report on the assessment of Pakistani steps taken to deliver on its promises to resolve the global community concerns over how financial matters are handled in Pakistan which the watchdog has commended.
Pakistan had delivered on 24 of the total 27 agenda points of FAFT which, it said, was laudable. Pakistan has worked on countering terrorism financing a great deal, said the watchdog, adding the law enforcement agencies in the country have duly pointed to all attempts at terrorism financing.
The watchdog further noted Pakistan not only barred the movement of all the listed men in the global list of terrorists but also kept a check on their accounts and channels. – TLTP