KARACHI: The federal government has expressed its dissatisfaction with the measures taken by the Sindh government to implement the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regarding money laundering and the procedure of registration of NGOs.

It also called for a detailed report on the measures taken by the Sindh government to carry out reforms in madressahs and to check currency smuggling and use of funds for terrorism.

This emerged from a meeting held on Friday at the home department to consider the measures being taken for implementation of FATF recommendations and the progress on the National Action Plan (NAP).

The meeting was attended by Nacta Director General Moha­mmad Iqbal, Foreign Office director general for anti-terrorism Ahmad Farooq and home secretary Qazi Abdul Kabir as well as other officials.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Kabir said that in Sindh 10,000 NGOs were registered but only 4,000 were active while only 1,250 NGOs had submitted their audit reports.

In reply to a question, he said that the Sindh government was working on new legislation to monitor activities of the NGOs in the province. The new law was being worked out in line with the guidelines given by Nacta to have effective check on terrorism and use of money.

Referring to the implementation of the recommendations of FATF, he said that some other measures were also being taken by the government to check terrorism and use of finances in terrorism activities and reforms were being introduced in madressahs in the light of the FATF recommendations.

Nacta DG Mohammad Iqbal said that the process of monitoring of NGOs and welfare organisations was not up to date. He said that in the meeting it was decided that the Sindh government would also strictly monitor the working of welfare organisations. He also directed the Sindh government to provide detailed reports about all such NGOs which were active without registration with the government.

The Nacta DG also stressed the need to make a policy to monitor the collection of skins and hides of sacrificial animals and use of the money generated from their sale.

Mr Farooq said that the provincial governments needed to take more measures against money laundering and terrorism.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2019