- Pakistan is not out of the woods yet
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that the government has proposed eight bills for passage by Parliament so that Pakistan might be moved from the grey list to the white list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). While addressing a press conference in Multan on Saturday, he also said that the bills had been given to Opposition for study along with a draft of the NAB amendment. Mr Qureshi should realize that the NAB law should not have been linked with the anti-money-laundering laws, because while the NAB law amendment would occupy the opposition, the other laws urgently need passage.
Mr Qureshi predicted a dire fate if Pakistan was not found to be in compliance with the FATF Action Plan. For its purposes, it will not be enough to pass the laws, but to implement them as well. The need for such laws can be seen from the presence of as many as 6500 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, according to a report submitted to the UN Security Council. Mostly with the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan, those fighters represent a threat to both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obviously, they are funded from somewhere. It is only if loopholes are plugged that the presence of such forces can be stopped.
That these laws have to be passed is incontrovertible. That the opposition will be tempted to seek some concessions in the NAB law is inevitable, but to link the anti-money-laundering laws is to make pieces of required legislation controversial. It does help that the government has treated the opposition as pariahs, with the result that it cannot ask for the required support now. It is too much to expect that the same forces will help the government pull its chestnuts out of the fire as did when the government needed opposition support over the legislation needed when the COAS’s extension was at stake. The government must use its political skills to engage the opposition and persuade it to pass the needed legislation without any fuss.
