Since its establishment three months ago, Directorate General Anti-Benami Initiative (DGABI) has filed only one reference against benami property out of 183 investigations, according to sources.
The Directorate was established in June, 2019 with the aim to combat the menace of benami and take the spirit of accountability forward as anti-corruption agencies remained unable to trace and document the real beneficial owners of benami properties due to lack of proper regulations that led the perpetrators unaccountable.
The Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act was promulgated in 2017 but it remained dormant till March 2019 when the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) issued its rules and established DGABI in June. Afterward, four zones of Anti-Benami Initiative (ABI) were constituted in July to place administrative oversight and step up crackdown against white-collar crimes. The four zones were established for capital territory, Rawalpindi & KPK, Punjab and Sindh & Balochistan.
As per detailed functions of the Directorate specified by the FBR, BS-18 initiating officers are appointed to conduct proceedings of the cases while BS-20 officers are financial and administrative heads. The approving authority is also under BS-20 officers. BS-21-22 officers adjudicate references filed by investigating officers under adjudicating authority.
The director general provides administrative, logistical and financial to anti-benami zones, and act as a focal point between the FBR and these zones besides serving as a point of contact for all other agencies interacting with FBR in benami cases.
Although the ideal formation of Benami directorate's hierarchy should have ensured efficient and effective implementation of the law, which empowers to seize benami luxury vehicles, offshore investments, bank accounts, stocks and shares, the directorate and its zones remained unimpressive since its establishment.
Well-informed sources confirmed that FBR had referred 183 benami cases to the directorate, which were later disseminated to the zones and added that majority of these benami cases were for Karachi and Lahore zones as these two zones had jurisdictions to investigate benami cases in three provinces - Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.
They admitted that the directorate and its zones had so far failed to produce desired results and only one reference was filed against benami property by Lahore zone however, rest of the zones remained unable to finalize investigations even after property attachments and now they had extended properties attachments for further 90 days in order to buy time for filing of references.
Replying to a question, sources said that directorate and its zones could not produce impressive results, due to bureaucratic hurdles; adding that each benami zone, which was supposed to have designated office with ample workforce, had no separate office and working with only one or two initiating or investigating officers. However, each benami zone should have at least 10 initiating officers and three administrative heads, due to concentrated work nature, sources said.
Moreover, sources said: "Although the directorate and its zones under the law have powers to seize benami luxury vehicles, offshore investments, bank accounts, stocks and shares, we are not authorized to access our own 'FBR database', which we consider as prime source of investigation."
To another question, they said that FBR had so far not drafted any mechanism to ensure the safety of the officers, who were investigating benami cases referred by FBR; adding that ministry of finance had also refused to allocate funds for the directorate and zones, showing the seriousness of the incumbent government, which had a manifesto to root out corruption and corrupted elements from the country.
Consequently, the officers posted in benami zones are forced to use resources borrowed from different tax offices, which may not only raise safety issues for the investigating officers but may also cause of leaking sensitive information, they said.
They therefore requested the authority concerned to provide workable environment for the officers working in the Directorate and its zones and enable them to perform well otherwise it would become 'failed adventure' not only for FBR but incumbent government as well.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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