Informal donations prone to money laundering: SECP

Informal donations prone to money laundering: SECP

KARACHI: Pakistan has been rated amongst most charitable nations in the world but most donations are routed informally which makes the whole exercise prone for terror financing and money laundering, Waseem Ahmad Khan, Additional Director, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) said on Wednesday.

He was addressing at a seminar organized by Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) at auditorium of Regional Tax Office (RTO) Karachi.

He said that SECP and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had taken initiatives to fix the issues on Anti Money Laundering (AML)/Countering Financing Terrorism (CFT) pointed out by Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

He informed the participants that FATF is a 37-member global body established in 1989 with mandate to combat money laundering, terror finance and nuclear non-proliferation. Besides it has also associates observers.

Pakistan as a member has international obligations to comply with FATF recommendations and correspondingly it had promulgated relevant laws including Anti-Terrorist Act, 1997, Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, National Counter Terrorism Act, 2013 etc. and had also devised national action plan.

Waseem Ahmad said that the SECP was undertaking enhanced due diligence on the basis of territorial / geo-political basis, sectoral lines and channel of donations.

In order to realize the full impact of spirit of generosity of Pakistan horizontally, he suggested risk management should be set up by every non-profit organization (NPO).

Khalid Mahmood, President, KTBA, in his welcome address thanked the speaker and audience who attended the seminar in a big number. The even was moderated by KTBA vice president Zeeshan Merchant.