The timing of a Swiss federal tribunal's verdict in a case his last government initiated in October 1997 against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her husband Asif Ali Zardari, and her mother Nusrat Bhutto could not be worse for the present Sharif government. Whilst he badly needed the PPP's support in his confrontation with the PTI leader Imran Khan the Swiss tribunal has ruled that a diamond jewellery set worth $180,000 seized in connection with investigations into allegations of ill-gotten money belongs to Zardari and other legal heirs of the late PPP leader.
Meanwhile, the PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari's official spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar has issued a denial saying the Zardari House had nothing to do with the jewellery set. Didn't the PPP Co-Chairman deny ownership of the Surrey Palace at one point only to assert proprietary rights at an opportune moment? If the Swiss investigators say it belongs where it belongs, there is no reason to question its findings.
According to a press report, a company by the name of Bomer Finance, allegedly formed by one Jens Schlegelmilch and linked to Zardari, had filed ownership claims but failed to convince the tribunal, which in its October 29 judgement confirmed the popular suspicion that Schlegelmilch "appeared to have acted as the attorney for the BB-AAZ (Benazir Bhutto-Asif Ali Zardari) couple." The press report goes on to say that lawyers from Python and Peter law firm representing the Government of Pakistan before the tribunal has informed the government that the judgment meant that Bomer Finance failed to establish that it was the legal owner of the jewellery. Furthermore, Schlegelmilch could not prove that he acted as a Bomer board member while buying the ornaments. It's been almost a month since the Swiss tribunal announced its verdict. Yet neither the PM nor his spokesmen have uttered a single word on the subject. What the government is going to do about it? Permit the legal process to drag on while Bomer Finance goes into appeal. There is no intention whatsoever to pursue this or other cases of wrongdoing.
Last August, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had revealed that Pakistanis have kept a staggering $200 billion in Swiss banks, saying the government would hold talks with Swiss authorities on avoidance of double taxation to retrieve the money. Lest people upped their hopes, he said even countries like the US and the UK had taken years to reach agreements with Switzerland for exchange of information on their citizens' Swiss accounts; and that they too had achieved little success in recovering evaded tax money. Indeed, Switzerland has been acting very difficult in revealing information about its banks tax evading foreign clients' accounts. But that issue has hardly any relevance to our situation. Dar should not be discussing avoidance of double taxation unless the intention is to dodge the real issue. Tax evasion is not a problem for the rich and powerful of this country. It is an open secret that big land owners, and most in the retail sector and other businesses as well as majority of the members of Parliament do not pay their dues to the State. Some of the MPs in the previous National Assembly had publicly admitted not having bothered even to acquire a NTN number. These people don't need to go to Swiss banks to avoid doing what they can easily do here.
That though is not to say that tax evasion is entirely out of question, but that much of the loads of dollars - more than double the country's entire foreign debt - Pakistanis have stashed away in Swiss banks is ill-gotten money: kickbacks, graft, drug trafficking, etc. If the government is serious about doing the right thing it must first drop the pretense that the only offence involved in Pakistani-owned dollars sitting in Swiss banks is non-payment of tax. Focusing on the real issue can bring success.
Under the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act, of which an updated version went into force on January 2011, complying with the international Financial Action Task Force guidelines the country has put in place a number of preventive measures against laundering of dirty money originating from, among other illegal sources, embezzlement and other corrupt practices. As per Swiss Bankers Association website, "special investigators and CDB (Agreement on Due Diligence) Supervisory Board assess breaches of the agreement, and offences are punishable by fines of up to CHF 10 million." These measures allowed the Government of Pakistan to initiate the SGS-Cotecna lawsuit, including the jewellery case, leading to an investigation tribunal's proceedings. It should not be so difficult therefore for the government to try and bring back most of the ill-gotten money.
That though is not going to happen. It would not be surprising if many of the secret owners of this money are close to the government. Pursuing the jewellery case can spell trouble for it, at a time it badly needs the PPP's support to survive the PTI's challenge. Just last June, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had warned the government over initiating "false cases and references" against his party's leaders Yousuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Amin Fahim. The PML-N government should think twice, he said, before revisiting what he called an "era of political victimisation." Accountability in PPP parlance, of course, becomes political victimisation. Neither the PPP nor the PML-N can allow themselves to be subjected to such victimisation. It suits them both to agree on that 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours'. The jewellery can wait to be claimed at some other time.
([email protected] The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the newspaper.)
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