New Delhi: Despite all its devious manoeuvrings, Pakistan remains on the FATF grey list. “Pakistan government has two concurrent action plans, with a total of 34 action plan items. It has now largely addressed 30 of the items,” said FATF president. This way Pakistan will remain in the increased monitoring ‘Grey List’ of global terror financing watchdog FATF, said its president Marcus Pleyer on Thursday.

Pakistan will continue to be on the ‘Grey List’ of the Financial Action Task Force

“Increased monitoring list” is another name for the ‘Grey List’. “Pakistan has taken a number of important steps but needs to “further demonstrate that investigations and prosecutions are being pursued against the senior leadership of UN-designated terror groups,” the president of the global body against money laundering and terror financing said. “All these changes are about helping authorities prevent terrorism, stop corruption and prevent organised criminals from profiting from their crimes,” he said.

Pakistan will continue to be on the ‘Grey List’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as it needs to “further demonstrate” that action is being taken against UN-designated terrorists like India’s most wanted Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar, and groups led by them, the global body against terror financing said on Thursday

Pakistan has been battling this stigma by being on the Paris-based FATF’s grey list for deficiencies in its counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes since June 2018. Pleyer noted that “Pakistan has made significant progress and it has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018.”

He, however, had added that the item on financial terrorism still needed to be addressed which concerned the “investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups”.

Moreover, three other countries are onto the FATF list: Jordan, Mali and Turkey. They have all agreed on an action plan with the FATF. In June this year, Pakistan viewed as a failed state by many was given three months to fulfil the remaining conditions by October.

Pakistan was retained on the FATF ‘grey list’ for failing to effectively implement the global FATF standards and over its lack of progress on investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups.