Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Tariq Pasha said on Wednesday that nothing was found during initial inquiry to establish that 2,785 individuals used gift scheme for money laundering. A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance presided over by Saleem Mandviwalla was given a briefing by the high-ups of the FBR on the issue of alleged money laundering by 2,785 individuals by using gift scheme. Pasha blamed his officials for releasing inaccurate information to media even before any inquiry was launched in the matter.
The chairman and members of the committee showed their concern over the absence of process for keeping the probe information confidential, while Senator Kamil Ali Agha said that possibility can not be ruled out that FBR officials are trying to save certain persons involved in money laundering. He said that this may be the reason for expanding the case to huge number of individuals so as to make the inquiry very difficult.
The committee chairman inquired from the FBR whether or not the individuals accused of alleged money laundering by using gift scheme were tax filers. The response from the tax authorities was in the affirmative. The committee also directed Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to probe the alleged manipulation of Bank of Punjab (BOP) share price by underwriting of shares along with details of shares purchased and sold by the management and directors of BOP from January 2015 to March 2017.
The committee sought report from the SECP after thorough investigation. The representatives of the bank termed the allegation of shareholders that president of the bank had misused his powers for insider trading and that appointment of underwriter was against the rules and they have taken financial benefits by procuring 75 percent shares of the bank as baseless. They added that reputation and business of the bank was badly affected by accusations of shareholders. They also maintained some complainants were from a company which was defaulter of the bank.
The BOP officials further stated that demand of the shareholders was to increase the price of per share to Rs 35, which was turned down by the bank management. They added that issuance of the share suffered three months' delay due to such accusations from the shareholders. The committee members and chairman expressed displeasure over hiding of facts from the committee that the allegations were from the company which was defaulter of billions of rupees of the bank.
On the issue of the audit of withholding taxes collected by the telecom sector from users, the chairman FBR said the FBR would conduct the audit of the telecom companies which are ready for their audit. He also acknowledged the role of Pakistan Telecom Authority in this regard saying that companies would provide data by the end of this month.
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