ISLAMABAD; To meet a key demand of FATF Pakistan’s parliament on September 16,2020 adopted an anti money laundering bill with majority vote, paving way for Islamabad to present its case before FATF when it meets next month in France to get out of its grey list.
Pakistan is placed on FATF grey list for more than a year and it’s taking a number of steps including introduction of the new laws to tackle the situation and curb the menace of money laundering.
The approval of the anti money laundering bill and subsequently its conversion into the law in next couple of days will put harsh punishments for those who will be found involved in money laundering. It will also bring the facilitators, particularly, the bureaucracy in the domain of law if any official is found involved in assisting anyone in money laundering in Pakistan in the future.
The new law will provide an effective legal framework to the authorities to award punishment up to 10 years, besides imposing heavy penalties up to Rs 100 million to those who be found involved in money laundering.
Pakistan lacked legal framework to check money laundering and give punishment to the convicts to discourage flying of ill-gotton money out of Pakistan.
In the last 10 years, the two respective governments, one each of PMLN and PPP, Pakistan turned into a heaven for plundering and money laundering. The top leadership of these both parties exploited non- existence of anti money laundering legal framework and allegedly plundered Pakistan’s financial resources at will.
This ruling elite piled up plundered money and then laundered It to UK and other countries to buy properties of billions of dollars there .This ruling elite had no interest in putting in place any legal framework to put money laundering to an end. “How the plunderers could make laws which could one day fix them in anti money laundering cases”, questions advocate Bilal Raza.
These alleged plunderers were so confident of remaining untouchable that they never bothered to care about looming dangers of international restrictions like putting Pakistan on the grey list by FATF.
“Pakistan was the worst victim of money laundering. It’s ruling elite including PML N and PPP leadership had used their rules for plundering the national resources and then launder ill- gotton money out of the country and now with the new law this ugly ‘business’ will come to an end”, Majid Bashir , a renowned lawyer claimed in his comments on the passage of anti money laundering bill by Parliament.
The opposition remained hostile during joint sitting of Parliament when it passed the anti money laundering bill. It staged walk out from the joint sitting accusing the
government of approving the anti money laundering bill without giving due attention to its proposed amendments. Opposition leader , Shahbaz Sharif , termed it as a black day for Pakistan’s democracy.
Federal Law minister , Farooq Naseem, rejected the opposition’s allegations and claimed sailing of the anti money bill in joint sitting of parliament will help Pakistan get out of gray list of FATA