Pakistan shares compliance report with FATF team

ISLAMABAD: The visiting nine-member mission of Asia Pacific Group (APG) — an affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — on Tuesday asked Pakistan to grant the powers of terror financing probe to the FIA, dissemination of Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) to the Counter Terrorism Departments (CTDs) and ensure effective coordination among the Centre and provinces to combat terror financing and money laundering.

However, during the maiden meeting with the visiting APG mission, the Pakistani side gave strong arguments and said the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) was sharing the STRs with the law enforcing agencies (LEAs) and CTDs.

“Today’s meeting went well and we presented our stance in a more effective manner,” an official told this reporter after attending the meeting. There was a well-defined mechanism devised by the FIA where they shared financial intelligence reports with the CTDs where action was required.

The FMU also shared its data with the APG mission to demonstrate that the STRs were also shared with CTDs where required. The nine-member visiting APG mission comprises Gordon Hook, Executive Secretary; Shannon Rutherford, Deputy Director; Mohammad Rashdon, Deputy Director; Ashraf Abdullah from Maldives, Boby Wahyun Hernawan from Indonesia, Gong Jingyan from China, Ian Collins from the UK, James Prussing from the US, and Mustafa Necmeddin from Turkey.

The Pakistani side tabled the third mutual evaluation compliance report to the mission. “Overall, there is a need for more improved coordination among different ministries and departments as well as among the Centre and provinces,” official sources said, adding that the APG was a recommending body and it did not have its own grey or any other list. There is a need for improved coordination between the Nacta and the Ministry of Interior.

After three days of deliberations, the APG mission would share its draft report with the Pakistani side and then Islamabad would be given an opportunity to respond to the concerns raised by the visiting team in its draft findings.

The APG is supposed to present its findings on mutual evaluation probably in coming August 2019 before the general body meeting.