Still grey

FATF’s benchmark for countries’ ability to control and stem terror-financing and money laundering is questionable

Pakistan is there to stay on the FATF grey list. The reasons are beyond comprehension, and it seems the nod to ease Islamabad from monitoring lies somewhere else. The Paris-based global money laundering and anti-terror financing watchdog is increasingly overreacting, and it is refusing to acknowledge the hardwork that Pakistan has done in obliging to the unending list of requirements, as well as the changing goalposts. The recently held hybrid plenary session once again urged Pakistan to ‘do more’ to obstruct financial crimes, even though Pakistan has complied with the agenda except an odd point that is still in the making. The fact that it went on to add the UAE too under its obscured scanner speaks of how it suspiciously views evolutionary fiat issues in the developing Muslim world.

As a matter of fact the FATF’s benchmark to grill respective countries’ ability to control and stem terror-financing and money laundering is questionable. It varies from country to country, and also depends on a host of external conditions that go on to keep it bogged down in doing this stringent arithmetic. So is the case with many of the penalised states under FATF preamble and manifesto. Pakistan is the only state which has come a long way from fighting an undesired war on terror in its neighbourhood, and at home, and literally struggled to eradicate the menace to a greater extent. FATF’s pat on its back is not enough, as it should walk the extra few miles to buoy Pakistan and let it do its ordained regulations on its own. No one can work in peace under a Sword of Damocles hanging over its head, and take the flak too at a time when the global economy is nosedived.

Pakistan is committed to do its homework, and it will in all honesty. The reason behind this is not external pressure but its inherent political resolve to cleanse the Augean Stable of terror outfits, their remnants and well-entrenched money that has shooked the county’s peace edifice. The egalitarian members of the FATF should realise that hampering Pakistan’s progress and obstructing the investment path at a juncture when it is opening up in the geo-economics realms will be unadvisable. Bring back Islamabad in the global money mechanism to help it make strides in the right direction.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2022.

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