Grey listing: Pak says it’s target of politics at FATF
: Pakistan said it was made a “target of politics” at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting, which has voted to place the country on its “grey list” over its record on money laundering and terror financing.
The decision by the 37-member body will take effect after three months after the completion of certainprocedures.Pakistanwill have to work with the FATF to prepare an action plan to tackle money laundering and terror financing, sources said.
Pakistan’s de-facto finance minister Miftah Ismail said his country was made a “target of politics” despite its tangible efforts to crack down on money laundering and terror financing.
“What do [they] want? They just want to humiliate Pakistan. Pakistan is not a big money launderer,” said Ismail, who is the prime minister’s adviser on finance. “If they were bothered about terror financing, they would work with us, they would see how much we have done and [what more] we will do till June,” he told Geo TV.
Putting up a brave front, the adviser said that Pakistan was placed on the list between 2012 and 2015, but the stock market still grew by 3%.
He said the fundamentals of the country’s economy are strong. “Nothing is going to happen before June… [but even then] nothing really will happen to
ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI
Pakistan. It is not a big issue.”
The action plan will set the parameters according to which Pakistan’s actions to counter terror financing — primarily for the Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Falah-eInsaniyat Foundation, both groups linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed — will be subsequently evaluated by the FATF, sources said.
Though some have suggested the three-month period amounts to a reprieve for Pakistan during which it can act to address the concerns of the FATF, Indian officials believe the country is unlikely to take any significant action against the JuD and FIF since Islamabad has failed to stop the fund-raising and recruitment drives of both groups even after they were designated terror organisations in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The decision to include Pakistan in the grey list followed several days of hectic lobbying by the US and its allies Britain, Germany and France and deal-making that involved Saudi Arabia and China, the sources said.