FATF’s ‘toughest tasks’ nearly accomplished: Hammad

Stresses need for local capacity to assess public, private institutions dealing with financial flows

ISLAMABABD:

Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar on Wednesday said Pakistan was approaching completion of the action plan handed over to it by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to ensure compliance in line with the watchdog’s standards.

"Two toughest action plans were given to Pakistan . . . and we showed excellent performance in a short span of time, and now we are near to complete both tasks," he said while addressing an event at the National FATF Secretariat in Islamabad.

Azhar, who is also Chairman of Pakistan's Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Group, said Pakistan was playing a key role in the global fight against terrorism, its financing and money-laundering.

He said Pakistan learned a lot from this challenge [FATA action plans] converting it into an opportunity to improve the existing system. “This assessors’ course is part of it as we want that Pakistan must have the local capacity to assess the public and private institutions dealing with financial flows.”

The minister vowed that through this course Pakistan would continue with the 'improvement processes' for regional and world safety, even after completing the FATF action plans. He expressed confidence that Pakistan's assessors, after getting training, would not only be able to represent the country at the international level but also provide services to other countries.

"This [assessors course] is a good development which shows Pakistan's increasing compliance and commitment towards the FATF. Pakistan's system is much compliant to FATF as compared to most of the countries, present on this platform….our enforcement measures are far effective to them," he said.

With these measures, he added, Pakistan's future generations would get the benefit due to lasting peace in the region and world. "It will greatly help check the menace like money-laundering, through which billions of dollars of poor countries are illegally shifted to other countries every year," he added.

National FATF Secretariat Director General Khawaja Adnan Zahir, in his welcome address to the concluding session of the nation’s first nine-day Assessors Course, highlighted the importance of the training for law enforcement agencies and other departments, keeping in view the massive challenges the country faced over the last three years.

During the past decade, he said, the global AML/CFT landscape had changed tremendously and regulatory checks on it had increased.

“The economic and political image of many countries have been tainted because of issues like ML/TF [Money Laundering & Terrorism Financing],” he said, adding Pakistan had throughout been one of the most affected countries from ML/TF issues due to numerous reasons.

At the same time, Pakistan’s resolve to fight back these challenges remained unprecedented, he said.

“In order to effectively address these challenges, it is important that we build a strong AML/CFT compliance regime by enhancing the capacity of our institutions and the forefront officers.”

He said such training courses would help Pakistan safeguard the integrity and reputation of its system, besides producing the experts who would represent the country at international forums.

Secretariat’s Director Rizwana Qazi presented a detailed briefing on the working and objectives of the Secretariat, and the structure of the training course that was attended by officers from different departments.

Later, Azhar awarded certificates among participants of the Assessors Course who were from different departments and ministries including Customs, FBR and National Counter-Terrorist Authority, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Law and Justice.

Earlier on arrival, Azahar unveiled the plaque of a newly established training hall at the secretariat.