ISLAMABAD: National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) chief Khaliq Dad Lak has called for qualitative change in investigations and prosecutions of terrorism financing cases.

Speaking at a meeting of Nacta’s national task force on combating terrorism financing on Thursday, he urged law enforcement agencies to carry out parallel investigations to unearth the financial trail behind terrorist incidents.

He also briefed the participants on various guidelines and standard operating procedures, which Nacta had recently issued for financial investigations of terrorism cases and other related matters.

During the meeting, it was emphasised that a targeted, organised and wholehearted effort should be made by all responsible stakeholders for timely implementation of the action plan under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The meeting was attended by all 29 members of the task force from federal and provincial governments and other organisations, including the Federal Investigation Agency, Federal Board of Revenue, Anti-Narcotics Force, State Bank of Pakistan, Financial Monitoring Unit, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Interior and provincial home departments, as well as counter-terrorism departments.

The Nacta’s national coordinator told the participants that on the directives of the interior minister, the authority had set up the national task force on countering financing of terrorism (CFT), which provided a common platform for sharing experiences and exchanging information.

Earlier, the task force took stock of the progress made on the decisions taken in its 10th meeting and issues concerning implementation of the FATF action plan were thoroughly discussed.

The financial monitoring unit also apprised the participants of the recent onsite visit of the Asia Pacific Group for Pakistan’s mutual evaluation carried out from Oct 7 to Oct 19.

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Pakistan Customs briefed the task force on the steps it was taking with regard to currency declarations.

Other departments also pro-vided their input on various CFT matters.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2018