Second meeting of the Advisory Board Members
The second meeting of the Advisory Board Members of the National Initiative against Organized Crime (NIOC) Pakistan was held on December 05, 2019, at Islamabad.
Mr. Tariq Parvez chaired the meeting. Mr. Tariq Khosa Director NIOC briefed the board members, about the first meeting held on 9 November and recapped the discussion points of the meeting of the Stakeholders’ Roundtable held on November 22, 2019. He briefly discussed the following four broad categories of crimes to be addressed under the pilot project:
Terror Financing
Drug Trafficking
Human Trafficking
Cyber Crimes
Director Khosa emphasized that, under this Initiative, we will seek cooperation of the state institutions on the determined thematic areas of NIOC, but we will maintain our independent position. He said that we would identify the flaws in policies issued by the government on the core areas of our objectives and we will make recommendations in support of government policies through policy briefs and action plans. All those points had already been discussed with Dr. Moeed Yousuf, Head of the Policy Planning Unit of National Security Division and a meeting either in Lahore or in Islamabad would be planned during December 2019.
Terror Financing:
NACTA have nominated DIG Shahzada Sultan as a focal person for coordination with NIOC. He will be asked to prepare a paper on terror financing where issues like legal mandate, involved stakeholders, FATF conditions should be mentioned as well as it should tell us that where do we stand in this regard. A similar kind of paper had been produced by Narcotics Control Division (NCD) and was shared with NIOC.
NACTA will produce the said document, after which NIOC will share it’s an observation on it and will produce a policy brief for the government. Director Khosa requested NIOC members that they should share their questions on the issue related to terror financing so NACTA can address these questions in the proposed paper. It was also decided that NIOC will plan a meeting with Mr. Hammad Azhar, Federal State Minister for Economic Affairs, in January 2020 on this issue as well.
Drug Trafficking
NIOC, in collaboration with NCD produced a paper on drug trafficking. Mr. Kashif Noon, a consultant, who had been recently added in the NIOC team as strategist and lead researcher, improved that analysis paper. That paper had been shared with the members as well. This paper would be uploaded on the NIOC’s website. NIOC will reach out to the NCD to deal with issues related to narcotics for Drug Policy Alliance.
President AB Tariq Parvez said that we should identify the weakness in the narcotics policy issued by the NCD and also work in areas to be identified by NCD and ANF.
Member AB Zubair Habib would organize an awareness campaign on drug menace. He said that he would supervise a pilot survey in Karachi on drug usage where young people in the age bracket of 16 to 25 would answer a questionnaire anonymously to gauge the drug usage patterns amongst the youth.
Human trafficking
NIOC is in coordination with FIA on the mapping of this issue. NIOC will ask DG FIA to nominate an officer for coordination on human trafficking and cybercrime issues.
DG National Police Bureau Syed Ejaz Hussain had also offered his institution’s cooperation for NIOC.
Decisions
Issuance of an analysis paper on terror finance in December, 2019
Issuance of analysis paper on anti-narcotics in December 2019
NIOC will sign a Letter of Engagement with Kashif Noon as a strategist and lead researcher in the NIOC team with clear TORs
The first Newsletter for November 2019 would cover the brief of activities carried out during the month
Policy brief on narcotics control prepared by Mr. Kashif Noon would be uploaded on the NIOC website once it is operational
PIPS has made a website which is under construction, and it is on trial stages, and it will be appropriately launched within a week
Second Stakeholders’ Roundtable would be conducted during January, 2020
Eventual aim of NIOC is to propose a national strategy against organized crime with a focus on the four categories already identified
Report
First monthly report of NIOC activities during November 2019 had been sent to the Manager Global Initiative Resilience Fund in Vienna.
Attendance:
- Tariq Parvez, President AB
- Fiaz Khan Toru, Member AB
- Zahid Hussain, Member AB
- Zubair Habib, Member AB
- Mr Tariq Khosa, Director NIOC
- Kashif Noon, Consultant
- Shozab Askari ,Project Coordinator, PIPS
- Hassan Sardar, Manager Admin & Finance