Govt focuses on hunting opp, not fulfilling FAFT requirements: Sherry

By Our Correspondent
October 25, 2020

ISLAMABAD: The parliamentary leader of the PPP in the Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman on Saturday asked the government that instead of hunting the opposition, it should have focused on the FATF’s requirements to come out of the grey list.

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While commenting on the decision of the FTAF to keep Pakistan on the grey list, Senator Sherry Rehman said despite of working on to fulfill the FAFT requirements, the PTI-led government has engaged in bulldozing the existing laws, disrespecting the Parliament and getting passed the legislations, which were not even required for the FATF, and it was incomprehensible that what did the federal government get out of it? She said there were still six action points remaining that needed to be fulfilled to come out of the FAFT’s gray list. She said the global watchdog had asked Pakistan to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, which was extended later due to the pandemic but we made no progress.

The PPP’s senator said Pakistan was removed from the grey list earlier, when terrorism was a bigger threat in the region. “We had Pakistan removed from the several lists without any of this, when the conditions on the ground were actually tougher,” she added. She further said if we helped in changing laws and all they were for Pakistan, nothing else. She strongly criticised the government that they made cheap points on every conversation, without maturity or foresight, further asked that why did the PTI-led government not get its homework done timely.

Senator Sherry Rehman said, “Why did they not look at everything in time? In fact, they were too busy managing an anti-opposition narrative, which seemed to be their only task.” She continued saying it seemed that the FATF requirements were deliberately skipped and most of the exercise was just to focus on passing draconian laws to target the opposition. “It is shocking to see the federal ministers have been giving congratulatory messages, when the country is still on the grey list,” she concerned.

The PPP senator said the PTI-led government has been bulldozing the laws in the Parliament and polarising the country, adding that they had not been able to meet the technical compliance for the standards. She said the federal government had to give an explanation for why they could not manage to get Pakistan removed from the FAFT’s grey list. She added that it was really not a rocket science, and could have smoothly been done much earlier, if the government would merely have put its focus on the issue.

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