FATF: facts, diplomacy and public narrative

There was no media strategy to shape public narrative and inform world about Pakistan’s commitment to AML/CFT agenda

FATF’s plenary session concluded last week and as expected Pakistan stays on the grey list. However, a lot has changed since the last session in February, as manifested by a much more supportive tone of the forum, appreciating Pakistan’s significant progress against the action plan agreed in 2018. Pakistan is now fully or largely compliant with 21 out of a total of 27 action items, as opposed to merely 14 a few months ago.

Yet, during the last few weeks, the international media was full of baseless news items about the risks of Pakistan being blacklisted. Although Pakistan achieved significant progress on ground and undertook significant diplomatic efforts, it did not shape the public narrative, which was completely hijacked by baseless Indian propaganda.

Let’s first see what all we have done so far to improve our anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regime. Over the last few months, Pakistan amended scores of laws, both at national and provincial level, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act, Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, Anti-Terrorism Act, Companies Act and Waqf, Trusts and Cooperative acts. A new legislation on mutual legal assistance was enacted to improve international cooperation on money laundering and terrorism financing. Multiple working groups were formed to ensure inter-agency cooperation, regulations for designated non-finance business professions (DNFBPs) were made, and AML/CFT measures were introduced in Pakistan Post and Central Directorate of National Savings. Thousands of accounts were frozen, and transactions were rejected for positive matches with designated persons. AML/CFT penalties to the tune of Rs1.5+ billion were imposed on banks. The offenses regarding hawala/hundi were made cognizable and their imprisonment was increased. Systematic improvements in the FIA were introduced and an AML/CFT cell was established, leading to registration of cases, arrests and seizures. Cross-border currency movement was controlled and enforcement against terrorism finance cases was intensified and most importantly, 49,000 non-profit organisations (NPOs) were de-registered.

The country now needs to focus on a few remaining areas such as demonstrating that law enforcement agencies are identifying and investigating the TF activity and prosecutions, resulting in effective proportionate and dissuasive sanctions; showing effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all designated terrorists and their associates; and further strengthening our enforcement against NPOs, in relation to TF cases.

On the diplomatic front, the country also did a decent job. A group of diplomats from important countries were invited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September and were briefed about Pakistan’s progress to date. Other back-channel efforts also helped in creating goodwill for Pakistan leading to a consensus decision by the FATF. The outgoing Chinese ambassador last month already indicated that the upcoming FATF review would have a positive outcome for the country. Such diplomatic efforts are essential to garner international support and should continue till the next session in February 2021.

But despite all these efforts, there was no media strategy in place to shape the public narrative and inform the world about Pakistan’s commitment to AML/CFT agenda. Indian media outlets relentlessly spewed venom and the global media happily picked it up in the absence of any counter-narrative from Pakistan. Last month, I got in touch with a senior Pakistan official working on FATF and he was not willing to share a single word, not even to counter what has been baselessly alleged against Pakistan in international media. We need to not let this happen again. Let’s tell our side of the story to the world.

Pakistan stands a good chance to come out of the grey list by February 2021. The key is to keep the foot on the pedal on enforcement, continue the diplomatic efforts and shape the public narrative by proudly showing what we have achieved and not hiding it under covers.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2020.

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