Pakistan needs more legislations to meet remaining FATF benchmarks: Report

Pakistan needs more legislations to meet remaining FATF benchmarks: Report
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Pakistan will have to bring in play laws on at least two counts to meet the outstanding points of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) action plan to meet the June deadline.
FATF, the global terror financing watchdog last week retained Pakistan on its “grey list” till June after concluding that Islamabad failed to address its strategically important deficiencies, to fully implement the action plan that the watchdog had drawn up for Pakistan.
Now, reports suggest that aside from further legislations, the Pakistan government will have to submit an updated report within a month to the FATF on the progress on legislation and other steps to be taken to address the outstanding issues.
The additional legislation has to cover weaknesses in the existing framework, including apprehending those acting for or on behalf of designated terrorist entities or individuals and prosecuting targeted persons and entities or those working for them.
The three remaining FATF points include demonstrating that terrorist financing (TF) investigations and prosecutions target persons and entities acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated persons or entities; demonstrating that TF prosecutions result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions; and demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all designated terrorists, specifically those acting for or on their behalf.
In October last year, FATF had asked Pakistan to deliver on all 27 points by this February. However, Islamabad failed in this regard.
“To date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 24 of the 27 action items. As all action plan deadlines have expired, the FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan before June 2021,” FATF said in a statement at the outcome of a plenary last week.
Pakistan’s continuation on the ‘grey list’ means that it will not get any respite in trying to access finances in the form of investments and aid from international bodies including International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pakistan has been on the FATF’s grey list since June 2018.
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Fadia Jiffry

Fadia Jiffry

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