Govt hires firm to solicit US support
ALI HUSSAIN
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has hired a United States lobbying firm – Linden Strategies – to seek Trump administration’s support for the country’s quest to be removed from Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) “grey list” ahead of its crucial October 21-23 plenary in Paris.
A senior government official told Business Recorder that Pakistan’s Mission in Washington DC has hired services of Linden Strategies to effectively present Pakistan’s case and its progress on the FATF action plan with the Trump administration.
The Houston-based Linden Strategies is a government relations and business development firm providing strategic analysis and advisory to domestic and international clients, including sovereign nations – according to its website.
“Yes, we have hired a lobbyist and the Embassy in Washington is intensively in touch not only with the firm [Linden Strategies] but also with the Trump administration authorities to push Pakistan’s narrative and its comprehensive compliance with FATF’s action plan,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
He also claimed that out of 27 points of the FATF’s action plan, Pakistan is fully compliant on 21 points and partially compliant on the remaining six points “which are at an advanced stage of compliance.”
Asked about the failures to address several deficiencies as stated in the Asia-Pacific Groups (APG) report uploaded on the FATF website dated 30 September 2020 titled 1st follow Up Report Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan he maintained that it was an ongoing process and work was being done on the areas identified by the Group.
“Due to the comprehensive measures undertaken by the government of Pakistan, we have been able to foil Indian attempts to get Pakistan blacklisted in the FATF. We are hopeful that the upcoming FATF plenary ends with good news for Pakistan,” the official maintained.
In its September 2020 “Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan”, the APG in its 1st follow-up report, pointed out that overall, Pakistan has made some progress in addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in its MER and has been re-rated on one recommendation.
However, the report adds that “allocation of resources and implementation of measures in a risk-based manner to prevent or mitigate ML [money-laundering] risks (other than cash smuggling) is less advanced” and “Pakistan’s FIU, the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU), was not able to access detailed tax records. It also found that FMU could not spontaneously or upon request disseminate information and the results of its analysis to provincial police counter terrorism departments (CTDs), which are the designated TF [terror financing] investigation authorities. CTDs could access FMU information and financial intelligence during a TF investigation but only with permission of the court. Given the high risk of TF in Pakistan, significant weight was given to this deficiency.”
It also pointed out that Pakistan has no standalone data protection or privacy legislation, adding that some laws have data protection provisions but there are specific exceptions where disclosure is required by law.
In addition, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, being a special law, has the effect of overriding other laws, it added. While there is no proactive cooperation between authorities to ensure compatibility of AML/CFT requirements and data protection provisions, there are no impediments to such cooperation and given there are no conflicts between the AML/CFT requirements and data protection provisions, this is considered a minor deficiency, the report added.
It also stated that the criminal sanctions are available under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 and Penal Code but as no proceedings have been finalised, no sanctions have yet been applied. The FMU is authorised to provide a broad range of international cooperation in relation to ML, predicate offences and TF related to virtual assets. However, it is unclear whether other competent authorities have the same ability, it added.
Further, the report added that Pakistan’s 2018 AML/CFT National Strategy, which was found not to be risk-based in the MER, has not yet been updated based on the findings of the updated NRA [National Risk Assessment] in 2019.
The assessment of Pakistan’s request for technical compliance re-ratings and the preparation of the report was undertaken by experts from Maldives and Australia - Abdulla Ashraf, Maldives Monetary Authority, Alexander Meyer, Australian Department of Home Affairs and Nicola Critchley, Australian Department of Home Affairs.
INP adds: The Asia-Pacific Group (APG), a regional affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering and terror financing, has decided to keep Pakistan on its “Enhanced Follow-UP” list.
The APG retained the country on the Enhanced Follow-UP list on recommendations of the Paris-based FATF.
It released a 14-page Follow-Up Report (FUR) on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan showing the country fully complied with two of the 40 FATF recommendations to effectively implement anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) measures.
The country remained partially complaint on 24 recommendations and largely complaint on nine ones.
The APG report won’t have bearing on the upcoming plenary session of the FATF slated to be held from October 21 to 23, which would decide whether the country should be retained or stricken off the grey list.
