ISLAMABAD – Pakistan takes stringent measures against Money Laundering withseveral new steps.
The Senate Standing Committee on Finance passed Anti Money Laundering(Amendment) Bill, 2019 on Friday with several recommendations including theincrease in fines to ten million rupees and ten years imprisonment formoney laundering. This is aimed at streamlining the existing AML law inline with international standards and ensure technical compliance with theFinancial Action Task Force (FATF).
The committee met with Senator Farooq H Naik in the chair and observed thatthere were some errors in the Anti-Money Laundering Bill and hasre-submitted for correction.
The National Assembly has prepared some recommendations in this bill. Allprovisions of the Anti Money Laundering Amendment Bill were reviewed.
The committee, despite the stress of the Finance Ministry, rejected theproposal for arrest without warrant in suspicions of money laundering.
The committee reviewed the recommendations of the National Assembly indetail and approved the amendments and amended Section (4), Section (e) (4)6, Section (1) 7 and (4) 7, Section (1) 8, Section (5) 9, Section 21,Section (3) 21, section 33 and section (2) 34.
DG Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) said that amendments need to be inaccordance with FATF’s requirements as it would serve as technicalcompliance.
Read Top Stories
If the amendments do not comply with the FATIF recommendations, there maybe problems, said FMU official, adding that the time is approaching for theactions’ implementation and the legislation needs to be done.
Senator Sherry Rehman objected on why did the government commit before thepassage of legislation from the parliament.
According to the federal government, the proposed amendments in theAnti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill, 2019 “aim at streamlining theexisting AML law in line with international standards and suggest enhancingthe punishment of offense of money laundering to make it more dissuasiveand deterrent.”
The amendments suggest making the offense punishable under the AML Act,2010 a ‘cognizable offense.’ These amendments will also allow the FinancialMonitoring Unit to seek Egmont Group Membership (Group of FinancialIntelligence Unit) which is the requirement under the Financial Action TaskForce Recommendations. However, the committee rejected the proposal andrecommended the offense will be non-cognizable.
Three members including Shibli Faraz, Mohsin Aziz and Anwar Ul Haq Kakargave the descending notes while proposing it needs to be cognizable.
