A sub-committee of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance has directed Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to share with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) a list of 100 Pakistanis who have invested in the UAE real estate sector. A sub-committee of the NA finance committee constituted under the chairpersonship of Shezra Mansab on around $8 billion investment by Pakistanis in real estate sector of the UAE met here on Wednesday.
The FIA official informed the meeting that they have obtained from a source a list of 100 Pakistanis who own properties in Dubai and their queries to this effect are not being responded by the UAE authorities. The FBR representative also expressed concurring views and stated that all their previous efforts to get information from Dubai authorities remained fruitless.
A member of the committee Asad Umar said Pakistan has lost cases due to international arbitration but Pakistani departments are unable to get information from the UAE despite the fact both the countries are signatories to various UN conventions including those against corruption and money laundering. He also referred to a Dubai Land Authority press statement noting that during the last four years Pakistanis invested about $8 billion in real estate sector and the government stated that no permission was granted to anyone for taking money abroad to purchase land.
The committee also witnessed a deadlock after it came into the notice of the members that minutes of recommendations of the last meeting were not recorded. To this, Asad Umar remarked that apparently it seems that powerful and strong people in Pakistan had properties abroad and they want to sabotage the committee efforts to discover loopholes in the system that allowed them to take the money abroad for buying properties.
Soon after the start of the meeting, it was informed that there was no recording of the discussions taken place in the previous meeting. Asad Umar said that it was mandatory under the rules to record the proceedings and showed concerns that the last meeting recommendations regarding NAB were not present in the minutes of the previous meeting. The chairperson of the committee acknowledged that she did not record the recommendations.
Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Chairman of the finance committee, during his courtesy visit to the sub-committee meeting came down hard on the government functionaries for not doing their work. A NAB official initially informed the sub-committee that the person who attended the last meeting was unable to attend this meeting because he was stuck in a traffic gridlock but afterwards he stated that he was out of the country.
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