‘Sabotage effort to exit grey list’: Imran Khan slams opposition for defeating FATF-linked bills

Islamabad, Aug 25: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday slammed the opposition for defeating two bills related to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in the Senate, accusing his political rivals of seeking to sabotage efforts for Pakistan's exit from the FATF 'grey list' for their personal interests.

In a series of tweets, Imran Khan posted "Today in Senate the opposition defeated 2 critical FATF-related bills: Anti Money Laundering and ICT Waqf bills. From day one I have maintained that the self-serving interests of the opposition leaders & the country's interests are divergent. As accountability noose has tightened."

"Opposition tries to hide behind [the] facade of democracy to protect their loot & plunder," he said, adding that the opposition "would even have Pakistan put on FATF's black list" in order to blackmail the government for a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO)-like concession by "defanging" the National Accountability Bureau.

"Let me make clear: No matter what happens, my govt will not allow any NRO as it would be betrayal of nation's trust in holding plunderers of public wealth accountable. Musharraf gave NROs to the 2 pol ldrs which quadrupled our debt & destroyed economy. There will be no more NROs," he said.

Earlier this week, Pakistan came with a list of 88 banned terror groups as part of its efforts to get out of the tough financial sanctions for helping terrorists and their organisations.

Pakistan said that it had imposed tough financial sanctions on terror groups and its leaders. The country said that it had imposed tough sanctions on terror leaders such as Maulana Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim by ordering seizure of all their properties and also freezing of their bank accounts.

It may be recalled that the Pakistan government had on August 18 issued two notifications announcing sanctions on Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief, Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammad boss, Maulana Masood Azhar.

The notification was also issued in the case of Dawood Ibrahim, who is wanted by India in connection with the Mumbai serial blasts.

The move came in the wake of the Financial Action Task Force putting Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018. Islamabad had been asked to implement a plan of action by the end of 2019, but the same was postponed in the wake of the outbreak of the pandemic.