Federal Minister of Industries and Production Hammad Azhar said Sunday the homework to get Pakistan off the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list has been ‘completed’.
Speaking to the media here, Hammad Azhar said Pakistan was put on the grey list because of the previous governments but the PTI regime will soon be able to get it off the list. “The opposition’s attitude has always remained negative and always been against the country’s integrity,” he said. “However, we stand steadfast on our policy to eliminate corruption and return the money.” The global money laundering watchdog had last month said it would keep Pakistan on its terrorism financing ‘grey list’. In an online press briefing from Paris, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) President Marcus Pleyer had said Islamabad has made progress but is yet to complete its action plan to overcome deficiencies in its combating of money laundering and terrorism financing. He had said that while FATF recognises Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, there were still some serious deficiencies that the country needs to address. “Out of the 27 conditions, three still need to be addressed,” he had said. “I recognise Pakistan’s efforts, and out of the six tasks that it had to complete, three had been [done] in an outstanding manner, but it substantially needs to work on the remaining three, particularly in terms of terror financing.”
Pleyer had stressed that Pakistan must continue to work on the items that it had committed to and make sure that it meets all the requirements, adding that FATF would once again review Pakistan’s efforts in June 2021.
