Pakistan requested reassessment of three areas declared partially compliant by APG in October last year
Islamabad:
Noting that Pakistan’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures “are not yet sufficient to warrant reassessment,” a regional affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force on Monday kept the country on its list of ` “ reinforced monitoring ”, according to a media report.
The development came just weeks before the FATF – the Paris-based global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog – met to decide on Pakistan’s gray list status.
The first follow-up report on Pakistan’s mutual evaluation published by the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) highlighted that the country’s progress on the 40 FATF recommendations on the effectiveness of the anti-money laundering system and terrorist financing (AML / CFT) remained unchanged – non-compliant on four counts, partially compliant on 25 counts and broadly compliant on nine recommendations, Dawn News reported.
Pakistan has improved full compliance with just two of the 40 FATF recommendations, the APG report notes.
“Pakistan will remain in enhanced (accelerated) monitoring and will continue to report to the GPA on progress made to strengthen its implementation of AML / CFT measures,” the GAP concluded in its 12-page report.
APG Mutual Assessments are a peer review system to determine whether countries are meeting money laundering and terrorist financing compliance standards.
Once a country has submitted a mutual evaluation report, APG members can decide to place a member through regular or enhanced monitoring. While regular monitoring only means biennial reports, a country subject to enhanced monitoring must send four compliance reports the following year.
The APG report noted that although the country has taken action on recommendations relating to money laundering and terrorist financing, progress “is not yet sufficient to warrant reassessment.”
Pakistan had requested reclassifications on three areas declared partially compliant by the APG in October last year. The request was accepted on one point and rejected on two due to “insufficient” progress to the satisfaction of international experts.
In August last year, the 41-member APG downgraded Pakistan’s status to “ Enhanced monitoring ” from “ Regular monitoring ” due to technical shortcomings to meet normal international financial standards of here October 2018.
“Enhanced monitoring” is an intensive remediation process that addresses members with significant gaps (in terms of technical compliance or efficiency) in their AML / CFT systems.
The APG report preceded the FATF virtual plenary scheduled for October 21-23 in which it would be decided whether Pakistan should be excluded from its gray list, based on a review of Islamabad’s performance for meet global anti-money laundering commitments and standards. and the financing of terrorism (ML&TF).
The FATF had placed Pakistan on its gray list in June 2018 and called on Islamabad to implement an action plan to combat money laundering and terrorist financing by the end of 2019, but the deadline was later extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seeking to get off the FATF gray list, indebted Pakistan in August imposed financial sanctions on 88 banned terrorist groups and their leaders, including the mastermind of the 11/26 Mumbai attack and the head of Jamaat-ud- Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Saeed, Jaish- Masood Azhar, head of e-Mohammed (JeM) and don Dawood Ibrahim.
In February, the FATF granted Pakistan, which missed 13 goals, a four-month grace period to complete its 27-point plan of action against the ML&TF engaged with the international community.
At its third plenary session held virtually in June, the FATF decided to keep Pakistan on the gray list, as Islamabad failed to control the flow of money to terrorist groups like Lashkar-e. -Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
With Pakistan being kept on the “ gray list ”, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the country to obtain financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank ( AfDB) and the European Union, thus further improving problems for the nation which finds itself in a precarious financial situation.
The APG report noted that Pakistan considered 12 terrorist organizations, including eight UN-designated entities of concern, for threat profiles, but only in terms of inflows and not outflows to support terrorist activities.
He also noted that the 2019 National Risk Assessment (NRA) confirmed that the misuse of non-profit organizations for the financing of terrorism continues to pose a significant threat both domestically and externally. and that charities and fundraising were a source of funding for almost everyone. EOC.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
