FOR all the emphasis the National Action Plan puts on various measures to combat terrorism, it is interesting to note the scant attention it gives to the question of financing terrorist activities. The sheer reluctance of the authorities to put in place the legislative framework and the organisational capability to track the movement of funds connected with illicit and militant activities is painfully obvious. Earlier this year, Pakistan narrowly missed being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force for its failure to comply with international standards for monitoring and intercepting funds connected with illicit and militant activities. Following this, the government hurriedly developed an action plan in order to comply with its obligations to the international community.

Earlier this month, a monitoring team from the Asia Pacific Group smiled upon the government’s efforts to implement the action plan, although the final word will be issued in February 2015 when the FATF will study the APG’s findings and issue its own statement. By then it would have been a year since the original threat to blacklist Pakistan, and four years since the FATF first said that Pakistan was posing “a risk to the international financial system”. Where NAP addresses in detail areas such as the judicial framework required to fight terrorism, as well as the media’s role in regulating the public discourse, it is baffling to see the government’s strained reluctance to move against terror financing over this time. A delay of four years is far too long when urgent action is required to implement a credible framework to track and intercept terror financing. Even now, NAP makes little mention of what is being done along these lines. We can only hope that the latest action plan, acknowledged by the APG with a nod of approval and a handshake a few weeks ago, will be endorsed by the FATF in February, and will subsequently be communicated to the public alongside all the other measures announced in NAP, and that we will see their strenuous enforcement.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2014