Senate Standing Committee on Finance: Anti-Money-Laundering (Amend) Bill approved

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance has approved the Anti Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill with recommendations for increasing penalty to 10 million and 10 years imprisonment on charges of money laundering.

In a bid to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the panel of Upper House passed the amendments into the AML in order to make it more stringent. This bill will now be tabled before the Senate for final approval. After the Senate’s approval, the bill will again be sent back to the National Assembly for reconsideration in the light of changes made at the level of the standing committee.

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance met here under Chairmanship of Senator Farooq H Naek on Friday but the Senate panel passed the bill with certain changes as the National Assembly had already passed this bill. Despite insistence by the Finance Ministry high-ups, the committee rejected the proposal of arresting the accused without warrant on suspicion of money laundering. The Senate panel reviewed the recommendations of the National Assembly in detail and approved the amendments and amended Section (4), Section(e)(4)6, Section(1)7 and (4)7, Section(1)8, Section(5)9, Section 21, Section(3)21, Section 33 and Section (2)34.

The Director General Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) said that the amendments were needed to be aligned with the FATF recommendations as it would serve as technical compliance. If the amendments do not comply with the FATF recommendations, it may create problems, he expressed his apprehensions.

The amendments suggest making the offence punishable under the AML Act, 2010 as ‘cognizable offence’ so these amendments would also allow the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) to seek Egmont Group Membership (Group of Financial Intelligence Unit), which is the requirement under the Financial Action Task Force recommendations.

The Senate panel rejected the proposal and recommended the offense will be non-cognizable. Three members including Shibli Faraz, Mohsin Aziz and Anwal Ul Haq Kakar gave the dissenting notes while proposing that it needs to be cognizable.

The committee approved the proposal for increase in fines on money laundering from Rs5 million to Rs10 million as well as increasing the limit of imprisonment from 5 to 10 years. Further, it approved that Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) data proposed to be kept for ten years instead of five years. The committee further approved the amendment, saying that attachment of property involved in money laundering, an investigating officer may on the basis of the report in his possession received from the concerned investigating or prosecuting agency by order in writing with prior permission of the court, provisionally attach a property which he reasonably believed to be the property involved in money laundering for a period not exceeding one hundred and eighty days from the date of the order, provided further that the court may grant further extension for a period up to one year.

The committee recommended that a police officer will not be able to arrest the money laundering suspect without orders of a magistrate or without warrants. Such a law will empower investigative agencies, said Senator Aisha Farooq belonging to PML-N.