FATF, politics and Pakistan

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has announced that Pakistan will continue to remain on the watchdog’s grey list, till it addresses all items on the original action plan agreed to in June 2018. The announcement was made by the FATF President Dr. Marcus Pleyer during a press conference after the conclusion of the financial watchdog’s five-day plenary meeting. He said that Pakistan has made significant progress and it has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018. The FATF aimed at addressing the strategic deficiencies in the regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing and several countries had been kept under enhanced monitoring list including Pakistan, Albania, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Ghana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Panama, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Other than these FATF also identified Haiti, Malta, Philippines, and South Sudan for its future review under the framework of enhanced monitoring or grey list. Whereas only two countries  Iran and North Korea are on the list of high risk cases (black list), which have been called upon to apply counter-measures to protect the international financial system from the money laundering,  terrorist financing, and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) risks emanating from these countries.

After having a quick glance on the names of the countries under review of the FATF, one thing is quite obvious that only third world countries or those  target of political complicity of big powers are under FATF’s radars,  no American or Western darling is under FATF’s radar or listed in grey or blacklist. India, Afghanistan, Iraq, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Central Asian States, Ukraine, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan and many more Countries have fully implemented the FATF protocols. No, certainly not, then what is the reason that despite Pakistan’s implementation of 26 points out of 27, it was kept in the grey list for another year. India is a FATF member and continuously complicates Pakistan’s issue and craves out its personal agenda through the FATF platform.

Now, it is the duty of the Pakistan government’s apparatus to chart out the strategy to hit back at India as there are countless loopholes in India’s financial system and legal framework. Pakistan can effectively use the recent incidents of Uranium sales in Indian black market, worldwide infamous betting business, nondocumented and informal economy provides sufficient space for money laundering. Indian extremist organizations Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vashwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) must be targeted by Pakistan for their collection of billions of rupee donations annually within the country and abroad through their sub-organizations in different countries. According to reports, VHP has been designated as a religious militant organization by the CIA in its world facts book in 2004. Surprisingly, Pakistan has been under FATF’s scrutiny for the last four years, but it does not have FATF’s membership so far, therefore it has no say at the forum. Pakistan has largely fulfilled its criteria and must get its full membership to save its interests at this international platform.