SOURCE: REPUBLIC TV
Pakistan’s economy will be shattered due to inflation and the value of Pakistani Rupee will fall drastically if the country is blacklisted at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Prime Minister Imran Khan warned on Sunday.
Citing Iran’s example, Khan said, if Pakistan is put on FATF’s blacklist, then no international financial institutions would deal with the country. The same would impact the Pakistani Rupee and there are no foreign reserves to save its value from dropping, he added.
The nervous Prime Minister further said, once rupee falls, the price of commodities including electricity, gas and oil will increase and the entire economy of Pakistan would be destroyed due to inflation.
Pakistan has been on FATF’s greylist since June 2018. The government was given a final warning in February to fullfil its commitments and improve transparency in financial dealings and take action on terror funding. The FATF extended the June deadline to September due to the coronavirus pandemic that interrupted the FATF plenary meetings.
Blames India for being on the blacklist
In yet another shameless attempt, Imran Khan blamed India for trying to ‘push’ his country on the blacklist. He said, for two years, India has been trying to blacklist Pakistan by ‘lobbying with the international community.’
The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to battle out money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. The Paris based body will meet in October and further actions related to Pakistan’s listing will be on its agenda.
In order to avoid FATF blacklist, Pakistan needs to demonstrate the effectiveness of sanctions including remedial actions to curb terrorist financing in the country. It will also need to ensure improved effectiveness for terror financing of financial institutions against all United Nation’s 1267 committee designated international terrorist. The list includes Pulwama attack mastermind Masood Azhar and 1993 Mumbai blast mastermind Dawood Ibrahim.
The country is yet to take action against illegal money or Value Transfer Services (MVTS) such as Hundi-Hawala. As per estimates by the Pakistani government, greylisting at FATF is causing damage of around $10 billion annually to the country.
