27 actionable plans: PM’s help to be sought for effective implementation to avoid FATF blacklist

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Finance and Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) have decided to seek direct intervention of the prime minister to ensure effective ownership and implementation of 27 actionable plans of FATF by the ministries and departments.

Pakistan has to comply with the plans within the envisaged deadline to avoid falling from grey to blacklist.

To ensure compliance of 27 actionable plans for combating money laundering and terror financing, the recently held visit of Asia Pacific Group, a regional body of FATF, had raised 670 observations on performance report tabled by Pakistan in October 2018 and showed its dissatisfaction with many aspects under the compliance requirement.

Now the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) is preparing a detailed compliance report and it would be forwarded to the APG by December 15, 2018.

The upcoming FATF meeting scheduled to be held in Sydney from January 5 to 7, 2019 will take up Pakistan’s compliance report in its review meeting.

In an exclusive talk with The News on Tuesday, Minister for Finance and Revenues Asad Umar said he had brought a major change in policy as he would be chairing a meeting of each relevant department or agency separately from next week in order to discuss each point in minute details in a bid to comply with all requirements of FATF in an effective manner.

“Instead of holding a meeting of National Executive Council (NEC) for reviewing progress on compliance of FATF requirements where all issues could not be discussed in details, it was decided that a separate meeting should be convened of each department or agency from next week and then convene the NEC meeting to gauge our overall performance,” said the minister.

He said the government would ensure compliance of all requirements of FATF within the desired timeframe.

He said the next FATF plenary meeting would be held in first week of January 2019.

However, the sources said the dissatisfaction shown by the APG mission had forced the Ministry of Finance and Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) to seek direct intervention of PM Imran Khan to ensure compliance at all costs because Pakistan could not afford slipping from existing grey into blacklist having far reaching consequences for the country.

There are some issues of placing coordination and ensuring capacity building of all departments and agencies concerned.

There are over a dozen departments and agencies but their designated focal persons changed frequently so it would become harder for a new official to understand this complex issue and then ensure effective follow-up for the purpose of compliance.

The capacity and coordination issues are severely impacting the work of provincial departments so it requires serious work.

The departments and agencies concerned will have to undertake this task very seriously because any lapse on their part could become quite negative for the performance of the country.

The Nacta Board was already established but it was not fully functional so there was need to focus on all these areas so Pakistan could qualify from grey to green list.