ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar has said that Pakistan had been given the most difficult action plan by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), however, he ruled out the chances regarding the country to be placed on the blacklist, ARY News reported on Friday.
Hammad Azhar, while addressing a press conference today, highlighted that 24 out of 27 points of the FATF action plan have been completed. The FATF had accepted that Pakistan completed 90 per cent work of its action plan and there was no option to place the country on its blacklist, said the minister.
He said that Pakistan is complying with the guidelines in light of the FATF action plan despite facing tough situation and disasters of the coronavirus pandemic. Azhar said he wants to apprise the nation that Pakistan is going to be placed on the FATF blacklist.
Read: PM Imran terms FATF-related bills ‘matter of national interest’
The federal minister said that the government will complete the implementation of the remaining points. Pakistan has successfully overcome the challenges and those making conspiracies to push the country to the FATF blacklist have failed again.
He said that the motives of India against Pakistan are not hidden anymore and the internal issues of the neighbouring country are now exposed before the world as well. India is also funding terrorists.
Azhar detailed that the grey list is called the enhanced monitoring list in term of FATF and many countries are currently residing on the list alongside Pakistan. FATF checks financial statements of almost all of the countries across the globe and each state will be checked on the basis of the different action plans.
Read: Pakistan rejects India’s malicious statement linking UN-designated individual with FATF
Hammad Azhar added that a dual action plan is being heard by FATF for Pakistan as a 2017 action plan was also being implemented. He said that Pakistan has timely formulated the rules and the implementation work of the FATF action plan will be completed by June this year.
Earlier, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had released its report on the assessment of Pakistani steps taken to deliver on its promises to resolve the global community concerns over how financial matters are handled in Pakistan which the watchdog has commended.
Pakistan has delivered on 24 of the total 27 agenda point of FAFT which it said is laudable. It has worked on countering terrorism financing a great deal, said the watchdog, adding the law enforcement agencies in the country have duly pointed to all attempts at terrorism financing.
The watchdog had further noted Pakistan not only barred the movement of all the listed men in the global list of terrorists but also kept a check on their accounts and channels.
FATF is likely to hold its next session in June later this year.
