Pakistan addresses 26 out of 27 action items of FATF

NA session adjourned for lack of quorum

ISLAMABAD:

The National Assembly on Monday could not conduct its business due to lack of quorum and the session was adjourned until Tuesday (today).

Apart from Question Hour, no item on the agenda could be discussed.

The opposition protested over the absence of Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin who was supposed to inform the lawmakers on the issues related to the FATF and the IMF.

The Ogra amendment bill and Civil Unmanned Aircraft System bill 2021, which were on the agenda of the NA session, also could not be presented.

The proceedings of the House, which met under the chairmanship of Asad Qaiser, could not be held due to lack of quorum.

During the Question Hour, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said that Pakistan had completed 26 out of 27 points for exclusion from the FATF’s grey list.

Quoting Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Khan noted that keeping Pakistan in the global anti-money laundering watchdog’s list was a political and not a technical issue.

The state minister said that during the previous PML-N tenure, only one point of FATF out of the 28 could be implemented. To this, PPP’s parliamentarian Naveed Qamar commented that the same situation continued even today and asked when Pakistan would be excluded from the FATF’s grey list.

Read Police, FIA agree on joint action for FATF targets

PPP’s lawmaker Nafisa Shah questioned when the report on Covid-19 package in which the AGP had pointed out irregularities would be presented in the House.

Khan said one special report on coronavirus had been submitted while the second would be presented soon.

JUI-F's Shahida Akhtar Ali maintained that Rs1,240 billion had been allocated to deal with the pandemic but the amount was spent on other programmes.

Khan replied that the GDP of Pakistan was better than other countries during the coronavirus situation.

During the Question Hour, Khan pointed out that the government had increased the support price of wheat from Rs1,400 to Rs1,800 per 40kg.

National Food Security Minister Fakhar Imam backed Khan saying the federal government had fixed the support price of wheat at Rs1,800 per 40kg while the Sindh government had done the same at Rs2,000.

The food minister further said that this was the first time the Sindh government differed with the federal government. He said the federal government was importing wheat and would keep ample stocks of the commodity.

Imam observed that a bumper crop of 27.5 million tonnes of wheat had been produced.

Later, PPP’s Ramesh Lal pointed out the low attendance of parliamentarians in the House after which the session was adjourned till Tuesday (today).