ISLAMABAD – PTI chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan appreciated the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to acknowledge the accomplishment of two separate action plans given to Pakistan to curb money laundering and terror financing.
On Friday, the international watchdog announced that Pakistan had met all 34 items on two action plans, but delayed its removal from the grey list until an on-site visit to the country in near future.
The watchdog will now schedule an on-site visit to verify implementation and sustainability of Pakistan’s money laundering and counterterrorism financing measures before removing it from its increased monitoring (grey) list.
Following the announcement, Imran Khan took to Twitter, stating that “FATF repeatedly praised work & the political will my govt demonstrated”.
He recalled that Pakistan was placed on the grey list in 2018 and it had to complete the most challenging action plan ever given to any jurisdiction.
“When my govt took over, we faced dire prospect of Blacklisting by that body. Our past compliance history with FATF was also not favourable,” Khan said.
“I constituted a FATF Coordination Committee headed by key minister Hammad Azhar. The committee had representation from all govt departments & security agencies relevant to our FATF action plan. The officers worked day & night in the first instance to avoid blacklisting,” read the tweet.
The former premier said that the PTI government did not only avert blacklisting, but also completed 32 out of 34 action items.
“We submitted compliance report on remaining 2 items in April based on which FATF now declared Pak’s Action Plan as completed,” he said.
I am confident that prerequisite onsite visit of FATF team to confirm completed work on our action plan will pass successfully too. Hammad Azhar, members of his FATF coord committee & officers who worked on this task performed exceptionally well. The whole country is proud of you
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) June 17, 2022
He appreciated former finance minister Hammaz Azhar and members of his team for their exceptional performance to get Pakistan removed from the grey list.
“I am confident that prerequisite onsite visit of FATF team to confirm completed work on our action plan will pass successfully too. Hammad Azhar, members of his FATF coord committee & officers who worked on this task performed exceptionally well. The whole country is proud of you,” Khan concluded.
However, PML-N slammed the PTI for diplomatically isolating Pakistan due to which the South Asian country faced economic sanctions.
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