At
the moment public attention seems entirely gripped by the controversy of Panama
Papers which include documents relating to offshore companies and transactions
of over 200 Pakistanis.
The Panama Papers are a set of 11.5 million confidential documents
detailing information about more than 214,000 offshore companies compiled by the Panamanian
corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, including the identities of
company shareholders and directors. The documents illustrate how wealthy
individuals, including public officials, hide assets from public scrutiny. At
the time of publication, the papers identified five then-heads of state or
government leaders from Argentina, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and the
United Arab Emirates as well as government officials, close relatives, and
close associates of various heads of government of more than forty other
countries. The British Virgin
Islands was home to
half of the companies exposed and Hong Kong contained the most affiliated
banks, law firms, and middlemen.[1]
While
the use of offshore business entities is not illegal in the jurisdictions in
which they are registered, and often not illegal at all, reporters found that
some of the shell corporations seem to have been used for illegal
purposes, including fraud, drug trafficking, and tax evasion.[2]
An
anonymous source using the pseudonym "John Doe" made the documents available in
batches to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung beginning in early 2015. The information
from this unremunerated whistleblower[3] documents transactions as far back as the
1970s and eventually totaled 2.6 terabytes of
data. Given the scale of the leak, the newspaper enlisted the help of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which distributed the
documents for investigation and analysis to some 400 journalists at 107 media
organizations in 76 countries.[4] The first news reports based on the papers,
and 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016. The ICIJ
plans to publish a full list of companies involved in early May 2016.[5]
According to these
documents, Nawaz Sharif's family holds millions of dollars worth of property
and companies in the UK, and around the world.[308]
The documents reveal that Nawaz Sharif's children (Hassan,
Husein and Maryam) have multiple properties in the UK through a set-up of at
least four offshore companies in theBritish Virgin
Islands. These companies own at least six upmarket properties
overlooking London’s Hyde Park.[293]
In
a rare phenomenon, the opposition parties in Pakistan have united in demanding
fair judicial investigation and action against any wrong-doings that may be
associated with the disclosures. The more vociferous such as Imran Khan are
demanding that Mr. Nawaz Sharif should step down immediately.
Let
us look at the life and works of Mr. Nawaz Sharif to see if it all makes sense.
According to Wikipedia:
Nawaz
Sharif was born in Lahore, Punjab on 25 December 1949.[1][19] The Sharif family are Punjabis of Kashmiri origin.[19] His father,Muhammad Sharif, was an upper middle-class businessman
and industrialist whose family had emigrated from Anantnag in Kashmir for business, eventually
settling in the village of Jati
Umra in Amritsar district, Punjab in the beginning of the
twentieth century. His mother's family came from Pulwama.[20] After the movement led by Jinnah in his struggle to create Pakistan in 1947, his parents migrated from
Amritsar to Lahore.[19] His father followed the teachings of the Ahl al-Hadith.[21] His family owns Ittefaq Group, a multimillion-dollar steel
conglomerate[22] and Sharif Group, a conglomerate company with holdings
in agriculture, transport and sugar mills.
In 1976, Sharif politically
motivated himself and joined the Pakistan Muslim League, a
conservative front rooted in the Punjab province. He initially focused on
regaining control of his steel industry from the government.
In 1979-80
General Zia-ul-Haq returned the Ittefaq Foundries to The Sharif family.
In 1981,
he initially joined as a member of the Punjab Advisory Council[30] under General Ghulam Jilani Khan, the Governor of
the Province
Under the
Military government of Lieutenant-General Ghulam Jilani Khan, Sharif was
appointed as the provisional finance minister and successfully attempted to
denationalise all of the government-owned industries to private sector.[30]
In 1985
General Ghulam Jilani Khan nominated Sharif as Chief Minister of the Punjab,
against the wishes of the new prime minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo, who wanted a
rural candidate, Malik Allahyar.[32] Sharif secured a landslide victory
during the non-political parties 1985 elections and became Chief Minister of Punjab with the support of the
army.[19] He served for two consecutive terms
as Chief Minister of Punjab Province, the most populous province of Pakistan.
During the 1980s, Ittefaq Group
expanded from five mills to diversified 30 businesses which produced steel,
sugar, paper, and textiles.[2] Its
annual revenues were then estimated at $400 million.[2]
He served
as Prime Minister from November 1990 to July 1993 when he was dismissewd by president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on charges of corruption similar to his predecessor Benazir Bhutto and from February 1997 to
October 1999 when he was ousted in a military coup by General Pervez Musharraf whom he had dismissed on disagreement on the Kargil fiasco..
As part of
his first actions as prime minister in 1990, he legalized foreign money exchange
to be transacted through private money exchangers.[38]
In 2005, Daily Pakistan reported
that Sharif family are the fourth wealthiest family in Pakistan with an estimated net worth of
US$1.4 billion.[300]
In 2011,
his assets were worth Rs 166 million which increased to Rs 1.82 billion by 2013.[303] In
2012 he made a net income of Rs. 12.4 million ($1.24 million) in 2012.[304] He
was one of the five billionaires who were elected to Pakistan's National
Assembly in 2013.[305] In
2015, his declared assets slightly decreased to Rs. 1.75 billion ($175 Million).[306]
Dawn columnist Hasan Belal Zaidi 4 April, 2016 writes
about Panama Papers:
Mariam is described as “the
owner of British Virgin Islands-based firms Nielsen Enterprises Limited and
Nescoll Limited, incorporated in 1994 and 1993”.
Marium Nawaz Sharif was born on 28 October, 1973.in Lahore and was probably studying English literature at the university when she became the owner of the offshore companies.
During Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s first term as prime minister
(1991-93) she married Captain Muhammad Safdar Awan who was her prime minister
father’s military aide.
The romantic fiction writer would
perhaps call it an example of legendary paternal love that forced the poor
prime minister to first make a law that would allow chaotic money transfers and
then siphon off his state discretionary funds into offshore companies to secure
the future of his beautiful daughter who had married against the wishes of the
family, and the old man who was chairman of the billions of dollars worth
family fortune would not allow anyone to spend a penny against his wishes,
presumably to keep his six jealous brothers at bay.
- Benazir Bhutto, former Prime
Minister of Pakistan and a
member of the Bhutto family
- Farrukh Irfan, Judge of the Lahore High Court
- Rehman Malik, former Minister of the Interior and former Director General of the Federal Investigation
Agency
- Malik Mohammad
Qayyum, Senior Advocate of the Supreme
Court and former Attorney
General
- Anwar Saifullah, Member of the Senate, former Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources and former Minister
for Environment and Urban Affairs
- Humayun Saifullah former Member of the National
Assembly
- Osman Saifullah, Member of the Senate
- Salim Saifullah, Member of the Senate and a Pakistan Muslim
League faction leader
- Hassan Bhutto, nephew of Benazir Bhutto
- Samina Durrani, widow of former Governor of the State Bank Shahkur Ullah
Durrani, and Ilyas Mehraj. Both relatives of Chief
Minister of Punjab Shehbaz Sharif.
- Waseem Gulzar, close relative of President of the Pakistan
Muslim League-Q and former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat
Hussain
- Maryam Nawaz, Hasan Nawaz Sharif and Hussain Nawaz Sharif, children
of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif[1]
- Dr. Iqbal Saifullah, Pakistani cardiologist and
Saifullah family's member
- Jehangir Saifullah, Chairman of Saif Group and Saifullah family's member
- Zain Sukhera, close friend of former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son
- Mahmood Ahmad, Pakistani businessman and CEO of Berger
Paints
- Bashir Ahmed, Pakistani businessman and chairman of
Buxly Paints
- Sultan Ali Allana, Pakistani businessman and chairman
of Habib Bank Limited
- Hussain Dawood, Pakistani businessman, Chairman of Dawood
Hercules Corporation Limited, Engro Corporation Limited, Hub
Power Company Limited, Pakistan
Poverty Alleviation Fund and The
Dawood Foundation.
- Sadruddin Hashwani, Pakistani businessman and Chairman of Hashoo Group, and his
son Murtaza Hashwani
- Brothers Aqueel Hassan and Tanwir Hassan, Pakistani
businessmen and owners of the Pizza Hut's Pakistan branch
- Ahmed Ali Riaz, son of Pakistani business magnate Malik Riaz Hussain who founded and owns Bahria Town
- Mir
Khalil-ur-Rahman,
Pakistani businessman, founder and editor of the Jang Group of
Newspapers
- Zulfiqar Lakhani, Pakistani businessman and owner of Lakson Group and Express Media
Group
- Shahbaz Yasin Malik, Pakistani businessman, managing
director of Hilton Pharma, and his family
- Shahid Nazir, Pakistani businessman and CEO of Masood Textile
Mills
- Zulfiqar Paracha, Pakistani businessman and owner of
Universal Corporation (Pvt) Ltd
- Javed Shakoor, Pakistani businessman related with Buxly
Paints
- Abdul Rashid Soorty, Pakistani businessman and owner of
Soorty Enterprise
- Azam Sultan, Pakistani businessman and Chairman of ABM Group of Companies
- Gul Muhammad Tabba, Pakistani businessman and Managing
Director of Lucky Textiles
.
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