ISLAMABAD– Pakistan Secretary of Finance Division has warned that Pakistanmight face economic sanctions over non-implementation of Financial ActionTask Force (FATF) recommendations, local media report.
Talking to media Finance Secretary Arif Ahmed Khan said Pakistan had totake strict measures to implement the FATF recommendations.
He said that the country had to proceed against the banned outfits in thelight of FATF recommendations. He expressed apprehensions that Pakistanmight face economic sanctions if the FATF recommendations were ignored andnot implemented.
The International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the FATF that reviewedPakistan’s action plan in recent meetings was not satisfied with theprogress on milestones set for January 2019. This was despite improvementsin the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism(AML/CFT) regime and integrated database for currency declarationarrangements.
The FATF will undertake the next review of Pakistan’s progress in June2019, which will be preceded by a face-to-face meeting with the Joint Groupin May.
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In June 2018, Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work withthe FATF and APG to strengthen its AML/CFT laws and to address itsstrategic counterterrorism financing-related deficiencies by implementingan action plan to accomplish these objectives.
The successful implementation of the action plan and its physicalverification by the APG will lead the FATF to clear Pakistan out of its‘grey list’ or move it into the ‘blacklist’ by September.
