The government said on Friday that it has got details of 10,000 properties held by Pakistanis in Dubai and England and notices have already been issued for 300 properties. Speaking at a joint press conference along with minister for information and broadcasting, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar also revealed that three flats of former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar have also been discovered by Assets Recovery Units.
He further stated that soon after coming to power, the government established a task force on accountability and subsequently on the recommendations of task force, the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) was set up with members from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to locate the assets held by Pakistanis abroad.
So far, he said, the major breakthrough of ARU is to obtain information about 10,000 properties held by Pakistan only in two locations Dubai - in three societies - and England. Of the 10,000 properties, he continued, 895 were selected for investigation and notices were sent to the owners of 300 properties.
He said that the properties have been bracketed in two categories - politically exposed persons (PEPs) who have held public office and transferred money abroad through money laundering and others are those who are not PEPs but have bought properties abroad and may have been involved in tax evasion. He also revealed that two flats have been discovered in the name of former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in London.
He said that the similar case is also pending in the Supreme Court and government has taken ownership of it and will submit details of properties in the next hearing of the case.
Akbar said that these properties were also on in the knowledge of previous government but no action was taken. However, as soon as leadership changed, the same investigation and other bodies, including FIA, FBR and NAB, have swiftly moved and gathered details of the owners of the properties.
The special assistant to prime minister said that a large number of properties are `benami' assets purchased on family members' names.
He expressed optimism that exchange of information treaty with Swiss authorities will be ratified soon and came hard on the previous government for keeping the issue on the backburner since 2013. "We are also working on bilateral laws to make them workable for seeking information," he said.
The special assistant said, "Corruption was done in the country through SROs and money laundering was done by using different laws." "The existing laws provide support to money laundering," he said, adding these laws will be amended to plug the loopholes being used for money laundering.
The government has also sought a solution to the Pakistanis' records with Swiss banks as information is also available with Germany and Pakistan will also try to get them as was done by Indian government for their citizens. Pakistan will not only be able to get information of past record but also of future information of Pakistanis' Swiss accounts, he claimed.
Akbar said that the Asset Recovery Unit has also taken up all the cases of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Leaks and sought information about offshore companies from those jurisdictions.
The assistant on accountability stated that in his opinion having properties or companies in Panama was not a crime in itself but hiding the properties warrants investigation to determine how the money was transferred.
The minister for information said that notices have been issued to all those public office holders who misused their authority. He stated that former Chief Minister Punjab is due to pay Rs 350 million for using the Prime Minister's airplane while Senator Mushahidullah also spent 54,000 pounds on medical treatment abroad, he added.
He said there are three pillars of economy under present government - crackdown against corruption, bringing in investment and introducing policies to facilitate ease of doing business.
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