ISLAMABAD - The federal budget for the fiscal year 2021-22 reveals that revamping of at least three wings of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has become one of the major priorities of the PTI government while National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA) continues to face its neglect for another year.

The Finance Bill 2021 states that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s federal government has slashed NACTA’s annual budget from Rs303 million to Rs262 million as compared with the last fiscal year and this is 13 percent drastic decrease.

NACTA was established in 2009 as the premier authority of the federal government to counter terrorism as well as extremism and presently it also monitors the implementation of the 20-point National Action Plan on Counter Terrorism. But the authority had been facing cold response from the successive governments with no exception from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).  

NACTA’s annual budget slashed from Rs303m to Rs262m

On the other hand, the government has earmarked special funds for the revamping of FIA’s Cyber Crime Wing, and for the operational improvement of its Counter Terrorism Wing (CTW) and the Economic Crime Wing (ECC) under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP 2021-22). 

The government has earmarked an amount of Rs 400 million for the operational improvement of FIA in AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism), counter terrorism, and case management system. The CTW deals with the countering of terrorism and terror financing while ECW oversees the agency’s operations in countering the money laundering with the help of newly established Anti-Money Laundering Assistance Desk (AMLA). An amount Rs400 million has been allocated for the revamping of FIA’s Cyber Crime Wing. Another Rs363 million have been allocated for Phase III of National Response Center for Cyber Crime (NR3C).

The federal government has recently removed Director General (DG) FIA Wajid Zia reportedly for not being cooperative in the opening of certain corruption cases and Sanaullah Abbasi has been appointed as the new chief of the agency. This has yet to be seen whether the government, as being widely speculated, would make FIA active against the opposition leaders only or its working is improved in dealing with the anti-corruption, money laundering and terror financing cases. The country is already facing the scrutiny of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global anti-money laundering and terror financing watchdog.