The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has unveiled “Pandora Papers” which includes the names of more than 700 Pakistanis, it emerged on Sunday.
According to the report, leaked documents revealed that key politicians including federal cabinet members, opposition party leaders, “have secretly owned an array of companies”.
Most prominently these include Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, his family, Minister for Water Resources Moonis Elahi, Senator Faisal Vawda, Ishaq Dar’s son, PPP’s Sharjeel Memon, the PTI leader Abdul Aleem Khan, among others.
Former minister for water resources Faisal Vawda set up an offshore company in 2012 to invest in UK properties, the Pandora Papers show. The now-senator told the ICIJ that he had declared all foreign assets held in his name to tax authorities.
The exposé further revealed that the son of former finance adviser to the prime minister Waqar Masood Khan co-owned a company based in the British Virgin Islands. Khan told the ICIJ that he did not know what his son’s company did and that his son lived a “modest life”, and was not his dependent.
Moreover, the documents contain no suggestion that PM Imran Khan himself owns offshore companies.
Allegations against Moonis Elahi
The documents show that Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, contacted Asiaciti, a Singapore-based offshore services provider, in 2016 about setting up a trust to invest the profits from a family land deal that had been financed by what the lender later claimed was an illegal loan. The bank told Pakistani authorities that the loan had been approved due to the influence of Elahi’s father, a former deputy prime minister.
A family spokesman for the Elahi family told ICIJ’s media partners that, “due to political victimisation misleading interpretations and data have been circulated in files for nefarious reasons.” He maintained that the family’s assets “are declared as per applicable law”.
PM announces probe against Pakistanis named in Pandora Papers
Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday welcomed the release of Pandora Papers leak saying that it exposed the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion and corruption and laundered out to financial “havens”.
In a series of messages on Twitter, the prime minister said that his over two decades of struggle has been premised on the belief that countries are not poor but corruption causes poverty because money is diverted from being invested in our people.
Also, he said that this resource-theft causes devaluation, leading to thousands of poverty-related deaths.
My over-two decades struggle has been premised on the belief that countries are not poor but corruption causes poverty because money is diverted from being invested in our people. Also, this resource-theft causes devaluation, leading to thousands of poverty-related deaths.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 3, 2021
Imran Khan further shared that the United Nation’s SG’s Panel FACTI calculated a staggering US$7 trillion in stolen assets parked in largely offshore tax-havens.
“My government will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers and if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action,” he said.
My govt will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers & if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action. I call on the international community to treat this grave injustice as similar to the climate change crisis.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 3, 2021
Jordanian, Czech leaders named in ‘Pandora Papers’
The secret documents also expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The King of Jordan secretly spent more than £70m ($100m) on a property empire in the UK and US.
Leaked financial documents identify a network of secretly-owned firms used by Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein to buy 15 homes since he assumed power in 1999.
They included houses in Malibu, and in London and Ascot in the UK.
The files also detail the financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
The probe
The Pandora Papers leak includes 6.4 million documents, almost three million images, more than a million emails and almost half-a-million spreadsheets.
The investigation involved more than 600 reporters from 150 media outlets in 117 countries, making it an even bigger expose than Panama Papers.
The files expose how some of the most powerful people in the world – including more than 330 politicians from 90 countries – use secret offshore companies to hide their wealth.
It may be recalled that the Panama Papers released in 2016 included the names of 444 Pakistanis.
This is a developing story…
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