Federal Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar assured the nation on Friday that the threat of Pakistan being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had been averted.
“We want to reassure the nation that the threat of blacklisting Pakistan has been averted,” said the federal minister while addressing a press conference in Islamabad, a day after the FATF granted the country four more months to complete the action plan.
The minister said that Pakistan was given the “world’s toughest action plan” by the global watchdog on money laundering.
He further said that a mere two of the 27 points had been addressed when the ruling party came into power country two years ago, but since then Pakistan has fulfilled 24 of those overall requirements.
Azhar explained that when the action plan was announced, the first objective was to ensure that Pakistan avoided the blacklist.
He also quoted the FATF as saying that Pakistan has fulfilled 90% of the objectives.
He assured that the last three items on the list will be “fulfilled by Pakistan by June”.
Highlighting the government’s commitment in fulfilling the objectives, the minister said that Pakistan had the option to not report back to FATF during the coronavirus pandemic but it still did so.
“We had the option to not report during the coronavirus pandemic [but] Pakistan fulfilled its objectives during the difficult times of coronavirus,” said Azhar.
He termed the country’s performance as “exemplary”.
Pakistan to remain on grey list until June
The same day, the FATF had said that Pakistan will remain under “increased monitoring” when it comes to terror financing, therefore, it will remain on the grey list until June 2021.
Speaking via a live video link, the FATF President Dr. Marcus Pleyer said that while FATF recognizes Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts, there are still some serious deficiencies that the country needs to address.
“Out of the 27 conditions of the action plan, three still need to be addressed,” he said. “I recognize Pakistan’s efforts, and out of the six tasks that it had to complete, three had been done, but it substantially needs to work on the remaining three in terms of terror financing.”
Pleyer stressed that Pakistan must continue to work on the items that it has committed to and make sure that it meets all the requirements, adding that FATF will once again review Pakistan’s efforts in June 2021.
Replying to a question related to terrorists’ prosecution in Pakistan, he said that the body is “not an investigative organization,” and that it “does not look at single incidents but takes a look at the entire framework” [to decide a country’s status].
He said that the risk of Pakistan being put on the blacklist was still there, and that the country must continue to work on outstanding action points to fix its financial monitoring mechanisms.
“The deadline for Pakistan [to meet the 27 conditions] had expired, that is why the body had urged Pakistani authorities to ramp up their efforts in dealing with the items.”
Back in October 2020, the FATF had acknowledged that of the 27 conditions that were put forth to Pakistan, 21 had been fulfilled while six were left.