Panama TORs

The joint parliamentary committee for investigating foul play by Pakistanis disclosed by the Panama papers has started its deliberations. There are already a number of draft TORs for the proposed judicial commission on the table, prepared by apparently the best brains in the country. However, I have a few humble submissions for the consideration of the committee:

        1.  The order of investigation should from the most significant person to the least significant.

        2. The commission should indict and punish those whose crimes are obvious and examine if other concerned persons are likely to have been involved in fraud, perjury, money laundering, tax evasion, misrepresentation etc. and accordingly instruct the relevant offices such as NAB, Election Commission, FIA etc. to take necessary action which should be monitored and completed in a short time.

      3. If the investigations indicate a deceased person to having been guilty of financial crime or misdemeanor, then his or her heirs should be asked to reimburse any such funds or relinquish inherited property, local or foreign, acquired by the deceased in unlawful manner or in defiance of national interest.

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Redefinitions

God: God is not a person or thing. God is a system. There are political, social, economic, communication and mechanical systems and there are people dedicated to their preservation and functioning. God is the father and mother of all systems; a super-system or network that motivates the genome and facilitates and controls the growth of a seed into a tree or an embryo into a man or animal.

Worship: Proof of compliance with the super-system.

Prayer: A humble appeal to the super-system.

Sin: Deed of personal vice that cannot be controlled by law or cured by medicine. 

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Immaculate Enrichment

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.

       

People whose documents appear in the Panama Papers.

 Pakistan

1. Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and a member of the Bhutto family
2. Farrukh Irfan, Judge of the Lahore High Court
3. Rehman Malik, former Minister of the Interior and former Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency
4. Malik Mohammad Qayyum, Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court and former Attorney General
5. Anwar Saifullah, Member of the Senate, former Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources and former Minister for Environment and Urban Affairs
6. Humayun Saifullah former Member of the National Assembly
7. Osman Saifullah, Member of the Senate
8. Salim Saifullah, Member of the Senate and a Pakistan Muslim League faction leader
9. Hassan Bhutto, nephew of Benazir Bhutto
10. 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.
11. Waseem Gulzar, close relative of President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q and former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
12. Maryam Nawaz, Hasan Nawaz Sharif and Hussain Nawaz Sharif, children of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif^[1]
13. Dr. Iqbal Saifullah, Pakistani cardiologist and Saifullah family's member
14. Jehangir Saifullah, Chairman of Saif Group and Saifullah family's member
15. Zain Sukhera, close friend of former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son
16. Mahmood Ahmad, Pakistani businessman and CEO of Berger Paints
17. Bashir Ahmed, Pakistani businessman and chairman of Buxly Paints
18. Sultan Ali Allana, Pakistani businessman and chairman of Habib Bank Limited
19. 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.
20. Sadruddin Hashwani, Pakistani businessman and Chairman of Hashoo Group, and his son Murtaza Hashwani
21. Brothers Aqueel Hassan and Tanwir Hassan, Pakistani businessmen and owners of the Pizza Hut's Pakistan branch
22. Ahmed Ali Riaz, son of Pakistani business magnate Malik Riaz Hussain who founded and owns Bahria Town
23. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman, Pakistani businessman, founder and editor of the Jang Group of Newspapers
24. Zulfiqar Lakhani, Pakistani businessman and owner of Lakson Group and Express Media Group
25. Shahbaz Yasin Malik, Pakistani businessman, managing director of Hilton Pharma, and his family
26. Shahid Nazir, Pakistani businessman and CEO of Masood Textile Mills
27. Zulfiqar Paracha, Pakistani businessman and owner of Universal Corporation (Pvt) Ltd
28. Javed Shakoor, Pakistani businessman related with Buxly Paints
29. Abdul Rashid Soorty, Pakistani businessman and owner of Soorty Enterprise
30. Azam Sultan, Pakistani businessman and Chairman of ABM Group of Companies
31. Gul Muhammad Tabba, Pakistani businessman and Managing Director of Lucky Textiles

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