close
Friday March 29, 2024

Senate body passes anti-money laundering bill sans govt input

ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday failed to get the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Amendment Bill passed from the Senate Standing Committee on Finance as a majority of senators rejected the inclusion of income tax frauds under the money laundering law.With dissenting notes of two parliamentarians of the Upper House belonging to

By our correspondents
October 29, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday failed to get the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Amendment Bill passed from the Senate Standing Committee on Finance as a majority of senators rejected the inclusion of income tax frauds under the money laundering law.
With dissenting notes of two parliamentarians of the Upper House belonging to the ruling PML-N, mainly from Senator Ayesha Raza who made efforts to get the bill passed without major changes, the parliamentary panel did not accept their recommendations.
The committee, which met under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwalla here at the Parliament House, passed the AML Bill with certain major amendments. Contrary to the desire of the government, income tax frauds will not be made a part of the amended money laundering law in accordance with the requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to curb terrorism financing envisaged under the UN umbrella.
The majority of members belonging to the PPP, ANP and PML-Q joined hands to oppose the bill tabled by the government. The amended AML 2010 Bill was already approved by the National Assembly and now the bill would be reverted back to the lower house of parliament for approval again with amendments recommended by the Senate or without any changes.
In the absence of both Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who remained engaged in other official meetings, and Secretary Finance Dr Waqar Masood, who is currently in Dubai for holding review talks with the IMF, the committee approved the AML 2010 with major amendments as Senator Fateh Mohammad Hassni of the PPP, Senator Ilyas Bilour of the ANP and Kamil Ali Agha of the PML-Q went all out for opposing the inclusion of income tax frauds to be charged under the money laundering law.
The senators argued that those officers who would wrongly insert the names of anyone under this law should also be charged under the AML law.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha said no one was ready to accept the AML with the inclusion of fiscal offences in the existing shape where tax frauds of income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty will be charged under the AML law. “You don’t know the consequences as the person charged under the AML will not be able to do business with any international firm,” he added.
He said that he conducted consultations with representatives of business community in Karachi and Lahore and they were not ready to accept this law. “It is not a joke to pass a law that affects many innocent people,” he added.
Senator Ilyas Bilour said that 75 to 80 percent taxes were paid by the corporate sector and now the government was going to move ahead to include fiscal offences under the AML which will be never be acceptable to them. He said the government had failed to bring retailers into the tax net but now the corporate sector would get scared with changes in the AML law. He said that he wrote a letter to the FBR alleging tax officials posted in Peshawar had demanded bribe of Rs7.5 million from him but no action was taken against them.
Sardar Fateh Muhammad Hassni said that they should not accept the dictates of the IMF. Senator Mohsin Leghari argued that no one had read this AML amendment in detail despite holding nine meetings on it.
The Finance Division’s legal consultant, Muneeb Zia, made futile efforts to convince the opposition senators for approving the bill as proposed by the government to include income tax, sales tax and FED frauds into it but the senators refused to accept his arguments. He said that the number of fiscal offences were reduced from 26 to just tax frauds of major taxes in Pakistan by bringing the AML law in line with the best international practices and the FATF requirements.
But the chairman of the committee in the end announced that they would pass the bill with certain amendments under which the income tax frauds will not be made part of the money laundering law.