Pakistan's 759-acre Fatima Jinnah Park to be mortgaged by Imran govt for 500 bn PKR loan

In the latest development, the Pakistan federal government has considered mortgaging the gigantic Fatima Jinnah Park in the F9 sector in Islamabad for procuring a loan of 500 billion PKR, as per Pakistan media reports. The park named after Mohammad Ali Jinnah's daughter is sprawled across 759 acres of land in the F-9 sector in Pakistan's capital. As per local media reports, the proposal of mortgaging the Fatima Jinnah park has been included in the agenda of the cabinet meeting scheduled to be held on Tuesday. 

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As per reports, financial issues faced by Pakistan has forced the country's cabinet to consider the move to mortgage the park. The Pakistan government intends to mortgage the park for 500 billion PKR by issuing bonds, local media reported. Pakistan has a history of its governments mortgaging public properties to meet the financial crisis. 

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FATF will consider Pakistan 'greylist' status

Pakistan is likely to be pushed into the 'black list' of the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) by February 2021, as it continues to finance and tolerate terrorist organizations, as per reports. Terrorist organizations, such as JuD and JeM, allegedly continue to operate with impunity in Pakistan. The said blacklist is for countries that the intra-governmental organization considers non-cooperative in the global effort to combat the financing of terrorism. The FATF will consider Pakistan 'greylist' status, meant for countries "under increased monitoring" during a meeting in coming days. The country in question was already placed on the grey-list once in 2018. 

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FATF President Marcus Pleyer reportedly said during October’s review meeting in 2020 that there were very serious deficiencies in Pakistan's efforts to counter terrorist financing. “As long as we see that the country is progressing with the action items, and we have seen progress with Pakistan, we give them a chance to repair the outstanding issues, but we do not do this forever,” Pleyer said.

After placing Pakistan on the Grey List in June 2018, the FATF had asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action to curb money laundering and terror financing. The FATF meeting scheduled in February is likely to decide on Pakistan's Grey List status. Maintaining that the Pakistani establishment uses the terrorists and proscribed groups as "proxies" to execute its anti-India agenda, he called upon the international community to hold the Imran Khan-led government accountable. 

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