Finance minister stresses need for finding, eliminating financial resources used by terrorists, emphasises need for monitoring of funds gathered by charities and NGOs
Federal Minister for Finance Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar Tuesday chaired a meeting of the sub-committee formed by the prime minister to recommend ways and means to choke the financial sources used by terrorists and terrorist organisations.
The participants including representatives of the ministry of finance, ministry of foreign affairs, ministry of interior, FBR, SBP, SECP, NACTA, security agencies and legal consultants, who discussed all relevant issues and impediments with regard to the situation.
The meeting specially discussed the aspect of terrorist funding under the garb of charities, emphasizing fresh registration and fool proof monitoring of all such organizations. The meeting expressed deep concern about narco-trafficking, which it thought was a potent source of terror funding. There was also emphasis laid on coordination with international agencies to curb financing for acts of terror.
It was the consensus view that under the prevalent legal system, investigators i.e. police, FIA, etc., rarely invoked specific provisions/clauses relating to funding for terrorism as contained in the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Anti Money Laundering Law. The focus of security agencies is on nabbing the terrorist instead of looking for the sponsor which was the root cause of the problem.
The meeting also observed that law-enforcing personnel lacked proper training and knowledge to track /investigate terrorists’ financial channels. Furthermore, there was no system to maintain consolidated data on prosecutions carried out by law enforcing agencies, which could be shared by these agencies, helping their investigation. The absence of proper legislation to regulate and monitor INGOs working in the country added to the problems faced by the security agencies and investigators, the participants noted.
The finance minister at this juncture said, “Most importantly we need coordination between the federal and provincial governments and agencies to deal with the problem of terrorist financing. We also need cooperation from the general public to put an end to this problem.” The minister said there was also a need to promote legal channels for transfer of money within and from outside the country and added that “it will help us to completely discourage hawala and hundi system”.
The minister remarked that in the current scenario NACTA should assume the leading role in gathering and consolidating data for use by law enforcing agencies. He said NACTA should be pro-active in countering terrorism and clearly state the help it requires in undertaking its official obligations. He also asked the participants to peruse international best practices and laws while finalising their proposal on combating financing for terrorists and terrorist organizations.
