THE PML-N government had committed in June 2018 to work with the Financial Action Task Force and the Asia Pacific Group to control, curb and eliminate money laundering and terrorism financing in Pakistan.

For this, the government had to implement a 10-point action plan suggested by the FATF. The original deadline given for the implementation of the plan was Jan 2019, with which the government failed to comply. At the latest review held from Feb 18 to 22, the International Co-operation Review Group and the FATF have again expressed dissatisfaction on the progress made by Pakistan to date.

Pakistan at present is on a “grey list” and its progress of implementing the action plan will again be reviewed in May 2019.

The government should, therefore, take the project seriously and give it top priority, as failure will mean Pakistan can be blacklisted by Sept 2019 and that will have grave consequences for the country.

S. Z. Hasan

Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2019