Pakistan minister for probe into previous governments' failure in securing FATF membership

Pakistan's Human Rights minister on Tuesday demanded a probe into the failure of past governments in getting the FATF membership, saying India has been creating issues for long.

The Paris-based anti-money laundering watchdog placed Pakistan on grey list in June 2018 and asked it to implement an action plan to address the issue of money laundering and terror-financing.

Shireen Mazari told Parliament that it was criminal negligence that previous governments did not pursue the membership of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which was set up by the G-7 countries in 1989 to curb money laundering.

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India became FATF member in 1998 and has been creating issues for Pakistan, she said.

"Parliament should conduct an investigation against specific members of the bureaucracy, foreign ministers and institutional heads (of previous governments) for not applying for the membership of the FATF," she said.

The minister accused that previous rulers were corrupt and involved in money laundering, so they avoided FATF membership.

Mazari was irked after reports that India was pushing to get Pakistan on the blacklist of the FATF. She said Pakistan's membership of the FATF would have saved it from current troubles.

She also said that the consular access agreement signed between Pakistan and India in 2008 was not registered in the UN.

Mazari said that two countries agreed not to give consular access to the spies and had it been registered with the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would not have taken cognizance of the Indian plea regarding consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav.

She demanded that probe should be launched for failure to register the agreement with the UN.

Mazari said unless a bilateral agreement is registered with the UN, it is not accepted or recognised by the international bodies. 

Outgoing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) president, Marshall Billingslea, on Tuesday hinted about the possibility to blacklisting Pakistan after the international financial watchdog's meeting in Paris.

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"Pakistan had 'significant' work to do. With regard to an action plan agreed in June 2018, they are 'lacking in almost every respect'," Billingslea said at a press briefing.

He added, "Pakistan was cautioned in February at the plenary that they had missed almost all of their January milestones. They were urged to not fail to meet the milestones in May. Unfortunately, Pakistan has yet again missed its May milestones."

FATF has come down heavily on Pakistan for its "lack" of compliance with the 26-point action plan prepared for Islamabad to demonstrate its sincerity in fighting terrorism.

(With PTI inputs)