ISLAMABAD: A Supervisory Board on compliance of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines has directed the Pakistan Post to stop opening new saving accounts and issuance of all kind of saving certificates from 16th of November.
The Supervisory Board administered by the Ministry of Communications for compliance of FATF guidelines against Anti-Money-Laundering and Counter-Terror Financing (AML/CTF) has taken this step in order to stop illegal transactions as the country has been striving to come out of grey list of the countries.
Pakistan Post provides postal services across Pakistan through a network of around 13,000 post offices. Pakistan Post also performs agency functions on behalf of federal and provincial governments, which include savings bank, postal life insurance, collection of taxes, and payment of electricity, water, gas and telephone bills. In addition, Pakistan Post provides inward remittance through an international remittance company.
Pakistan Post is also dealing with more than 1.4 million military pensioners
According to the official data the department is also dealing with more than 1.4 million military pensioners with total allocated portfolio Rs. 600 billion, 0.9 million special saving bank accounts with approximately cash deposit of Rs.300 billion and 0.8 million all kind of saving certificates valuing Rs. 216 billion.
FATF Regulation 2 para 28 of the AML/CFT Compliance Rules 2018 of Pakistan Post requires to maintain all necessary records of transactions both domestic and international for a minimum period of ten years from completion of the transaction. However, the Pakistan Postal Services Management Board Ordinance 2002, under which the regulations have been issued, provides no sanctions/penalties for non-compliance.
Supervisory Board administered met on 19th October and discussed FATF regulations compliance
The documents available with The News Today revealed that an important meeting of the Supervisory Board administered by ministry of communications was held on 19th October to discuss the performance of Pakistan Post regarding FATF regulations compliance.
According to the documents 9-2/2018-P.O-I (Pt) issued by ministry of communications, the Supervisory Board has directed Pakistan Post to immediately stop opening new saving accounts and issuance of all kind of saving certificates on its business counters with effect from 16 November 2020 till further orders.
The five-member Supervisory Board comprises senior joint secretary, ministry of communications Muhammad Salman; director general National FATF Secretariat, ministry of economic affairs division Khawaja Adnan Zaheer; director Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Hassnat Ahmed; director Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) Karachi Abdul Waheed and director Banking Inspection Department-1, State Bank of Pakistan Karachi, Fazal Mehmood.
Well informed sources in ministry of communications told The News Today that supervisory board in its meeting expressed displeasure over the performance of Pakistan Post for non-compliance of FATF guidelines against anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing (AML/CTF).
Federal Minister for Communications, Murad Saeed had hoped that the Rs.118 billion controversial strategic alliance between Pakistan Post and Habib Bank Limited (HBL) would help comply with the FATF guidelines against AML/CTF on fast track basis, however this deal was shelved due to some technical and administrative reasons.
Central Software Solutions (CSS) project has already been completed to digitize transactions of postal financial services
A senior official of ministry of communications, on condition not to be named informed The News Today that strategic alliance between Pakistan Post and HBL bank to digitize the transactions was inappropriate as Central Software Solutions (CSS) project has already been completed to digitize transactions of postal financial services.
The 3rd party contractor of Pakistan Post for CSS project, AIMS private limited believes that centralized software solutions has data of all cash account transactions of the last 20 years with relates to financial transactions to the tune of approximately Rs.15 trillion.
Pakistan Post awarded the CSS maintenance project to AIMS after a competitive bidding process culminating in handing-over of financial services dated 16-02-2019 to AIMS. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) between Pakistan Post Office Department (PPOD) and AIMS for project maintenance on 16th February 2019 was executed.
AIMS deployed 100+ technical resource persons on CSS Project managing PPOD Financial Services Electronic Money Order (EMO), Utility Bills Collection, BISP, CSP, Provincial Taxes, Military Pension Disbursements & Savings Bank Accounts across Pakistan at 83 GPOs and 3 HPOs.
AIMS management alleged Pakistan Post that main objective of crashing CSS project was to revert back to manual work
AIMS management alleged Pakistan Post that main objective of crashing CSS project was to revert back to manual work in order to add ghost pensioners, open same savings bank accounts and run parallel banking for fraudulent transactions at different sub-offices to withdraw money plus pension of deceased pensioners without any system checks / audit reports. As per a survey, entire financial transactions were being recorded manually in ledger books.
The senior post master of Sahiwal GPO told The News Today, since shutdown of centralized software solutions in last year 2019, the entire record of transactions once again reverted on manual ledger system, “We at our level try to keep the record safe, fixed IT experts in Sahiwal GPO to shift the data on Excel Sheets, it will help us to omit errors in recording and to safe duplicate record”, senior post master maintained.
AIMS management while speaking with this scribe claimed that if Pakistan Post is willing to comply with FATF guidelines, it would have to revert on centralized software solutions. Director General Pakistan Post, Ikhlaque Ahmed Rana confirmed that the notification about stoppage of new saving accounts and issuance of all kind of certificates has been received by his office.
Also Read: PAC calls report on HBL-Pakistan Post deal
