- Will a new committee change anything?
Pakistan is having a tough time convincing the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that it has taken concrete long-lasting steps to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. More than a year after being placed on the FATF’s grey-list Pakistan still risks being placed on the dreaded blacklist as it continuously fails to satisfactorily comply with the international body’s AML/CFT protocols. Only a week ago the Asia Pacific Group (APG) placed the country on an enhanced watch list for at least a year citing an inability to meet three-fourths of the FATF’s conditions. In light of this PM Imran Khan has established a high-powered 12-member body to help meet the FATF targets. Previously, the PM’s advisor on Finance Hafeez Sheikh was leading this effort but the charge of this new committee has been given to Minister for Economic Affairs Division Hammad Azhar. There are some fundamental questions that arise from this move. What hindrances did Sheikh and his team face that they were unable to achieve even a minimum success rate in perusal of FATF’s targets? Have those limitations been identified and removed to allow Azhar to garner a better result in the coming months? Why wasn’t such a committee constituted earlier if it was fairly obvious that the original team was not getting the job done?
Another issue with this committee is its composition. It is a top-heavy body with federal secretaries of the finance, foreign and interior ministries, heads of SBP, SECP and FIA and three senior officials from the GHQ. These are busy people with a plethora of other issues on their table; will they be able to meet as frequently as required to effectively discuss problems and implement strategies to meet their goals? In case they are unable to do so, progress will remain slow and deadlines will not be met keeping us in the FATF’s crosshairs for longer. One hopes that this new expanded team is more than just optics and delivers on the crucial issue of getting the country out of the FATF grey list.
