ISLAMABAD – The National Assembly on Wednesday evening passed three bills including Anti-Money Laundering Bill 2009, Competition Bill 2009, and Pakistan Engineering Council (Amendment) Bill 2009.
The National Assembly adopted Anti-Money Laundering Bill 2009 suggesting one to ten years imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 1,000,000 on violation of the law.
Moved by Minister of State for Finance and Revenue, Hina Rabbani Khar, the 46-clause bill was adopted with a majority vote thought there was no amendment in any of the reported clauses of the Bill.
Mentioning to objectives of the bill, the Minister of State stated, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Asian Pacific Group which are responsible for monitoring compliance of AML/Combating Financing Terrorism (CFT) regime by member countries, had raised serious reservations on certain provisions of AML Bill 2007.
“This required necessary review and changes in the law to bring it in line with international standards,” she stated.
She said amendments in AML Bill 2007 were also part of conditionalities under PakistanÂ’s Accelerating Economics Transformation Programme of ADB.
Similarly, she said, in order to meet requirements indicated by internal bodies and lending institutions, the proposed amendments address and broadly provide for AML lawÂ’s applicability in the area of countering financing of terrorism, expansion in the list of predicate offences and modifying the definition of money laundering in line with the internationally accepted standards.
For punishments, the bill provides, whosoever commits offences of money laundering shall be punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than one year but may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to Rs one million and shall also be liable to forfeiture of property involved in the money laundering.
It further provides that the aforesaid fine may extend to Rs five million in case of a company and every director, officer or employee of the company found guilty under this section, shall also be punishable under this section.
Under the bill, the federal government shall constitute a Financial Monitoring Unit that will have independent decisions making authority on day-to-day matters coming within its areas of responsibility.
For the investigating officers, the Act provides that any officer exercising powers under this Act or any rules made thereunder, who, without prior permission of the court ‘surveys or searches or causes to be surveyed or searched, any building or place; or detains or searches or arrests any person, shall for every such offence be liable, on conviction, for a term which shall may extend to two years or fine which may extend to Rs 50,000 or both.
With the passage of these bills, the total number of bills passed by the House during the current session become eight for which the Chief Whip Syed Khurshid Shah congratulated the political forces for accomplishing this task.
Referring to the Pakistan Engineering Council (Amendment) Bill 2009, Syed Khurshid Shah said that today the political forces had won, as during the previous regime, a dictator had tried his level best but could not succeed in getting the amendment of his choice passed from the Parliament.
He said that it was in a way the victory of Parliament and political forces who had all played their due role in legislation and frustrated the moves of the dictator to subdue the Parliament.
The Anti-Money Laundering Law was aimed at preventing money laundering, countering financing to terrorism and bringing the law in consonance with the internationally accepted standards to check corruption and illegal wrong use of money.
The Competition Law provided for free competition in all spheres of commercial and economic activity to enhance overall economic efficiency in the country. On one hand the Competition Law ensures level playing fields to people in every sphere of economy, while on the other it would protect consumers from monopolies and anti-competitive behaviour.