NA Body Defers Approval Of Anti Money Laundering

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance has deferred approval of Anti Money Laundering (AML) (Second Amendment) Bill because of stiff resistance by opposition benches.

The NA panel held its meeting under the chairmanship of Jamil Ahmed Khan because of the absence of committee Chairman Faizullah Khan here at Parliament House on Friday. The meeting considered approval of three laws to comply with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) including Limited Liability Partnership Amendment Bill 2020, Companies Amendment Bill 2020, and Anti-Money Laundering (Second Amendment) Bill, 2020. Two bills were approved but the AML Second Amendment Bill was again deferred.

Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh appeared before the committee first time and stated that everyone wanted the country to be removed from the grey list of the FATF and the government had also been trying to comply with the FATF action plan. He said Pakistan has so far completed 14 action plans and 13 were yet to be completed.

Pakistan, he said, was not able to increase its export and foreign direct investment as well as improve the living standard of the people. Some members of the committee were surprised overt the urgency shown by the government for approval of the proposed laws arguing that they could not approve bills in haste.

Naveed Qamar, Nafisa Shah as well as Ali Pervez and Ayesha Ghaus Pasha stated that approval of the law in the present form would be catastrophic for the economy and businesses, and on top of that, the opposition wanted exclusion of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) role.