ISLAMABAD: Australia has offered a training programme for the Pakistani officials to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has approved the names of officials for the training programme and a letter has been issued to all the stakeholders, including Federal Board of Revenue, in this regard.
According to sources, Director General Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue Khawaja Tanveer and Director General Customs Intelligence and Investigation (FBR) Shaukat Ali will attend the workshop in Sydney. The other participants include Deputy Secretary Anti-Money Laundering Finance Division Azmat Hussain, Additional Director State Bank of Pakistan Amjad Iqbal, Director FIA (ECW) Zaheer Ahmed, Joint Director Security Exchange of Pakistan Karachi, Muhammad Asif Piryani, Deputy Director Financial Monitoring Unit Karachi, Ms. Sumera Baloch and each nominee from Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Law and Justice, NAB, NACTA and Anti-Narcotics Force.
The training workshop will be held from May 22 to 26, 2017. All the officials will leave the Pakistan for Australia on May 19. The purpose of the training program is to assist Pakistan in its preparation of upcoming mutual evaluation 2018.
Australia would provide an opportunity for Pakistan Anti Money Laundering and combating the financing of terrorism stake holders to get benefit from their experience on mutual evaluation process and follow up actions. During the visit Australia will share its experience for preparation and undertaking mutual evaluation and lessons. Pakistan’s mutual evaluation on FATF recommendations is due in 2018 by AGP and till that time Pakistan has to make a lot of preparations on FATF requirements, which include technical compliance of FATF’s 40 recommendations and effectiveness of the AML and CFT system in terms of 11 immediate outcomes as per FATF Methodology.
