- Senator Saleem Mandviwalla notes with surprise that Sudan and many small underdeveloped countries are its members but not Pakistan
Despite an upsurge of money laundering, terror financing and suspicious transaction cases, Pakistan has been reluctant to join an international organisation of anti-money laundering for unknown reasons. Both the ruling party Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have been reluctant to move forward in anti-money laundering initiatives apparently to save their own cases.
It is crucial to note that Pakistan is not included in the list of 156 countries which are members of Egmont Group—a united body of 156 Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). The Egmont Group provides a platform for a secure exchange of expertise and financial intelligence to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF).
This was revealed during a meeting of Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance, held here on Tuesday with its Chairman Senator Saleem Mandviwalla in the chair. He informed the meeting that he was told by the Egmont Group regarding Pakistan’s reluctance to join it.
He said it was quite surprising that even Sudan and many small underdeveloped countries were members of the body—but not Pakistan.
However, responding to the allegation, a representative of Ministry of Finance claimed that Pakistan had applied for joining the group in 2010 but it could not get the membership for technical reasons. He claimed that Islamabad had initially wanted to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on country to country and FIUs level as per its own law. However, this process was not applicable in the Egmont case.
An applicant of the group may be considered for admission as a member of the Egmont Group provided it has at least two Egmont FIU sponsors—the US and Japan had sponsored Pakistan in the group. The last submission of application was recorded in 2015, as the meeting of the group for membership related matters is held once in a year.
However, his explanation could not satisfy members of the committee. “What is wrong with Pakistan? Why can we not qualify for the group, which has even included Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and others? Is there any wishful delay on the part of Pakistan?” Mandviwalla said, adding there is strong impression that Pakistan is avoiding to join Egmont.
“We will directly talk to Egmont if the ministry of finance has any issue. We will depute a member of the committee to talk to the group,” he added. The representative of finance ministry later admitted that the US—one of the sponsors of Pakistan—was not cooperating in this regard.
“Should we change the sponsor?” asked Mandviwalla. The officials of the ministry claimed that changing sponsor may harm the already processed procedure. They were of the view that since application and required documents have been submitted, ‘onsite visit’ of Egmont group, which is an important step in the application process, was expected in November or December this year. According to Egmont, this visit is crucial to confirm the operational status of the applicant FIU.
The officials claimed that FIU in Pakistan has so far detected over 1,000 suspicious national international transactions, and the same were forwarded to law enforcement agencies for investigations. Later, the committee decided to take up the case on November 3, 2017.
Under the umbrella of Egmont Group, FIUs are uniquely positioned to cooperate and support national and international efforts to counter terrorist financing and are the trusted gateway for sharing financial information domestically and internationally, in accordance with global Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) standards.
