ISLAMABAD: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced to keep Pakistan on the grey list till June 2021.
The announcement was made by FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer at a press briefing on the outcomes of the FATF plenary. “Pakistan remains under increased monitoring,” the president said.
The terror financing watchdog also recognised the “significant progress” made by Pakistan, however, ‘some serious deficiencies remain’. “All of these areas relate to terror financing, three out of 27 points need to be fully addressed,” he added.
While reiterating that Pakistan has made “progress”, the FATF president said, “We strongly urge completion of the plan by Pakistan.” He further said, “Pakistan must improve their investigations and prosecutions of all groups and entities financing terrorists and their associates and show that penalties by courts are effective.”
In response to a question by an Indian journalist about prosecution of terrorists in Pakistan, he said that the body was not an investigative organization. “What we assess is the entire system of anti-money laundering and the framework,” he added.
The FATF president noted that Pakistan was working towards its commitment made at a high level to implement the illicit financing watchdog’s recommendations.
The FATF had updated the overall performance of all countries. Pakistan has been shown improving compliance on two out of 40 recommendations of the FATF on the effectiveness of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) systems.
The country, last week had submitted a progress report on the FATF Action Plan to the International Operations Review Group. In the last plenary held in October 2020, FATF had announced that Pakistan would continue to remain on its grey list till February 2021 for six out of 27 unmet action plan targets on anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).
