Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar on Saturday said Pakistan's completion of the Financial Action Task Force technical parameters will be acknowledged soon despite challenges.
"Our fight against ML [money laundering] & TF [terror financing] continues with an unwavering national resolve. We wage war on these activities not just for global compliances but first & foremost for our own sake, the federal minister tweeted.
Azhar tweeted following the Paris-based global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog announced its decision to keep Pakistan on its terrorism financing "grey list" after its hybrid plenary meeting concluded on Friday.
In 2018, Pakistan was placed on the list, which made foreign firms more cautious about investing in the country.
"Pakistan is now just 2 items away from completing both its FATF action plans," Azhar tweeted. Six out of seven items in money laundering action plan were addressed within an "unprecedented timeframe", while 26 out of 27 items were addressed in terror financing action plan, he added.
"A number of countries believe that we have already completed this plan."
The watchdog appreciated Pakistan’s "robust progress" on its global commitments to fight financial crimes. "Pakistan should continue to work to address the one remaining item in its 2021 action plan by demonstrating a positive and sustained trend of pursuing complex ML [money laundering] investigations and prosecutions."
FATF noted since June 2018 Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG to strengthen its anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime and to address its strategic counter‑terrorist financing-related deficiencies.
"Pakistan’s continued political commitment has led to significant progress across a comprehensive CFT action plan," it stated.
"Pakistan has completed 26 of the 27 action items in its 2018 action plan. The FATF encourages Pakistan to continue to make progress to address, as soon as possible, the one remaining item by continuing to demonstrate that TF investigations and prosecutions target senior leaders and commanders of UN designated terrorist groups.
In response to additional deficiencies later identified in Pakistan’s 2019 APG Mutual Evaluation Report (MER), in June 2021, Pakistan provided further high-level commitment to address these strategic deficiencies pursuant to a new action plan that primarily focuses on combating money laundering."
It further stated: "Since June 2021, Pakistan has taken swift steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime and completed 6 of the 7 action items ahead of any relevant deadlines expiring, including by demonstrating that it is enhancing the impact of sanctions by nominating individuals and entities for UN designation and restraining and confiscating proceeds of crime in line with Pakistan’s risk profile."
