ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s finance chief Shaukat Tarin said on Saturday the recent decision by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to retain his country on its “grey list” was made “under the influence of some powerful nations,” though he also hoped Pakistan would exit the list during this year.
Pakistan was placed on the grey list of countries by the global financial watchdog in 2018 for inadequate terror funding and money laundering controls. In June last year, FATF President Marcus Pleyer said Islamabad had made “significant progress” but there remained “serious deficiencies” in mechanisms to plug money laundering and terrorism financing.
The FATF released a statement on Friday after its recent plenary meeting on March 1-4, recognizing Pakistan had taken “swift steps” to strengthen its financial system as recommended by the global body, though it decided not to remove it from the list of countries of concern.
“We have completed 26 conditions out of 27 of the action plan,” Tarin told an international media outlet during his visit to Dubai. “The FATF decision is politically motivated and it was taken under the influence of some powerful nations to pressurize Pakistan over its strategic policy decisions.”
Officials in Islamabad have frequently accused India of lobbying to retain Pakistan on the FATF grey list.
Despite its skepticism, however, Tarin also expressed hope that his country would exit the grey list in the ongoing year since it had almost met all the targets set by the international body.
Last year in June, Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also maintained that his country had made substantial progress to strengthen its financial system, adding there was “no justification to keep Pakistan on the grey list” anymore.
“We will have to see if the FATF is a technical forum or ... being used for political purposes,” he had maintained.
The FATF said in its statement on Friday: “Since June 2021, Pakistan has taken swift steps toward improving its AML/CFT [anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism] regime and completed 6 of the 7 action items ahead of any relevant deadlines expiring, including by demonstrating that it is enhancing the impact of sanctions by nominating individuals and entities for UN designation and restraining and confiscating proceeds of crime in line with Pakistan’s risk profile.”
It also urged Islamabad to complete the one remaining action item “by demonstrating a positive and sustained trend of pursuing complex money laundering investigations and prosecutions.”
Pakistan says FATF decision ‘politically motivated’ as watchdog retains it on grey list
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Pakistan says FATF decision ‘politically motivated’ as watchdog retains it on grey list
- The global financial watchdog placed Pakistan on its ‘grey list’ in 2018 for inadequate terror funding and money laundering controls
- Shaukat Tarin expresses hope Pakistan will exit the FATF list during the course of this year
Imran Khan’s party calls for ‘shutter-down’ strike on second anniversary of Pakistan elections
- Khan’s PTI party claims 2024 general elections’ results were rigged in their opponents’ favor
- Pakistan’s government denies the allegations, says polls were conducted in transparent manner
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has called on the masses to observe a countrywide “shutter-down” strike in protest against alleged rigging today, Sunday, on the second anniversary of the Feb. 8, 2024, general elections.
Millions of people took to polling booths across the country on Feb. 8, 2024, to vote for their national and provincial candidates. However, the polling was marred by a nationwide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government at the time and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) both rejected the allegations.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The government insists the polling was conducted transparently and that Khan’s party was not denied a fair chance.
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the opposition alliance Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayin-e-Pakistan (TTAP) are holding a nationwide shutter-down strike today,” Haleem Adil Sheikh, president of the PTI’s chapter in Sindh, told Arab News.
“We had appealed to the people to keep their businesses closed today because on this day, the people of Pakistan were deprived of their right to send their true representatives to parliament.”
Sheikh said the party was also mourning the victims of a deadly suicide blast in Islamabad on Friday which killed over 30 people.
TTAP chief and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, appealed to police in Sindh and Punjab not to disturb people who were participating in the strike.
“The people of Pakistan must express their anger by closing their shops,” Achakzai said on Saturday while speaking to reporters.
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful top generals. The army denies it interferes in politics.
He has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power.
In January 2025, an accountability court convicted Khan and his wife in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, sentencing him to 14 years and her to seven years after finding that the trust was used to acquire land and funds in exchange for alleged favors. The couple denies any wrongdoing.
