Pakistan Submits Report to FATF on Remaining Three Points

Pakistan submitted its compliance report on the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to get out of the global money-laundering watchdog’s grey list. The report details the implementation of the remaining three points out of total the 27 action plans that FATF had given to Pakistan to fulfill, reported a national daily. The newspaper quoted an official familiar with the matter as saying, “Face to face meeting for gauging Pakistan’s progress was scheduled during Eid holidays, but now on Pakistan’s request, it is scheduled for after Eid holidays.” FATF had placed Pakistan on the grey list in 2018. This list comprises countries with deficiencies in anti-money laundering and combating of financing terrorism laws. FATF gave Pakistan 27 action plans and a deadline of one year to implement them to come out of the list. However, with the pandemic hitting the country, Pakistan was then granted an extension in fulfilling the conditions, and the new deadline is June 2021, when the next plenary FATF review meeting is expected to take place. Pakistan already made progress on 24 points, and now a report has been submitted to FATF on the remaining 3 points. The government has also issued orders for the Energy Minister (and former Industries Minister), Hammad Azhar, to continue to act as the Chairman of the National Coordination Group of anti-money laundering. A statement by the FATF had said, “Pakistan should continue to work on implementing the three remaining items in its action plan to address its strategically important deficiencies.” Since then, Pakistan has demonstrated significant progress. The FATF has also admitted that since June 2018, Pakistan has made notable strides in addressing its strategic counter-terrorist financing-related deficiencies.