NEW DELHI: To avoid being blacklisted by a global terror financing watchdog, Pakistan has committed to a 26-point action plan to erase sources of terror funding, a plan it envisages implementing over 15 months, reported Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune.
The Paris-headquartered watchdog body, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), yesterday began discussions on the action plan, said sources in Pakistan’s finance ministry to the Tribune. If FATF is satisfied with this 26-point promise, it will put Pakistan on the less stringent ‘grey list’ like it indicated it would in February. If FATF isn’t convinced, it will go ahead and blacklist Pakistan. A decision is expected on Friday.
Pakistan must give special focus to curb cash smuggling, narcotics trafficking, and misuse of non-profit organisations, particularly funding of all these terrorist groups.
“Pakistan will have to deliver on the first goal by January next year and complete all the 26 actions by September 2019,” the finance ministry sources said.
By May, Pakistan will have to show that terrorism financing prosecutions successfully result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions against natural and legal persons convicted of terrorism financing offences. And by September 2019, Pakistan will address the key concern of identifying and investigating the widest range of terrorism financing activities like the collection, movement or use of funds.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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