Pakistan will have to comply with 40 recommendations

ISLAMABAD: A team of global experts has finalised a report with 40 recommendations that Pakistan will have to comply with to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s watch list for terror financing and money laundering.

The experts from the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), which is affiliated to FATF, made the recommendations after making an assessment of Pakistan’s legal and institutional framework to curb terror financing and money laundering during an 11-day visit. In June, Pakistan was placed on FATF’S grey list for failing to do enough to counter terror financing, especially the raising of funds by groups such as Lashkar-e-taiba (LET) and Jaish-e-mohammed (JEM). Pakistan will fully cooperate in addressing problem areas highlighted by the global experts in their report so that the country can be removed from the grey list by September 2019, finance minister Asad Umar said on Friday during a meeting with the APG team led by its executive secretary Gordon Hook. Umar said the government will implement international anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing standards in the country and take action to strengthen the relevant mechanisms.

The APG group’s report, comprising 40 recommendations under 11 performance benchmarks, was submitted to the government on Friday, Dawn newspaper quoted its sources as saying. The report will be now be discussed at the meeting of the National Action Committee to be attended by officials of key government departments and agencies, including the Federal Investigation Agency, Financial Monitoring Unit, Federal Board of Revenue and Anti-narcotics Force. The Dawn quoted its sources as saying that Pakistan had complied with more than 50% of the recommendations though it wasn’t clear whether this would be enough for the country to be taken out of the grey list.

In August, APG identified a series of deficiencies in Pakistan’s anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing laws and mechanisms. Pakistan then provided details of measures it had taken to overcome these issues. On October 5, Pakistan received a “technical compliance annexure” from APG that highlighted deficiencies in the laws that Islamabad needs to handle.