JOIN USIndia underlines Pakistan failed to fulfil 6 key mandates of FATF
India on Thursday underlined that Pakistan had not yet implemented as many as six of the 27 action points the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had prescribed after grey-listing it in 2018 for its lax legal mechanism to detect and stop the flow of funds to terrorist organizations.
The FATF, which is currently holding its plenary virtually, will on Friday formally make public the outcome of its assessment of the Pakistan Government’s progress in implementing the 27-point action plan suggested by it in June 2018.
New Delhi pointed out that the Pakistan Government had so far made progress on 21 of the 27 action plans suggested to it by the inter-governmental organisation set up to coordinate global efforts to squeeze flow of funds to the terrorist organizations and stop money-laundering.
“Six important action items are yet to be addressed (by the Government of Pakistan),” Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in New Delhi. “As is well known, Pakistan continues to provide safe havens to terrorist entities and individuals and has also not yet taken any action against several terrorist entities and individuals including those proscribed by the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) such as Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi.”
The FATF in 2018 has put Pakistan in its “grey-list” – officially a list of “jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in its legal regime to check money laundering and terrorist financing”. The Government of Pakistan and the FATF by June 2018 agreed on an action to plug the loopholes.
The FATF had in October 2019 set February 2020 as the deadline for Pakistan to deliver on its promises to plug the loopholes in its legal framework to squeeze flow of funds to the terrorist outfits. The intergovernmental organisation warned that if Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Government failed to deliver on its commitment, Pakistan might be put on its “black-list” - officially the list “jurisdictions with strategic AML / CFT (Anti Money-Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism) deficiencies for which a call of action applies”.
But even as Pakistan failed to fully implement the June 2028 action-plan, the FATF plenary in February this year decided against putting the country on the “black-list” and give it time till the next plenary, which started earlier this week and would conclude on Friday.
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“(The) FATF has well laid out standards and procedures for putting a country in its Black List and Grey List,” said Srivastava, adding: “After a country is put on a list, an action plan is given to it and the country concerned is expected to fully complete the action plan within the stipulated time.”
"Those found wanting in implementing their obligations are held accountable and subjected to appropriate action,” said the MEA spokesperson.
Sources told the DH in New Delhi that the FATF might on Friday give the Government of Pakistan time till June 2021 to implement the six pending action points.