PanamaLeaks issue: Of 444, 150 Pakistanis untraceable

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Friday that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had not filed any petition in Supreme Court in PanamaLeaks rather in 294 cases, notices under relevant section of the Income Tax Ordinance have been issued to Pakistanis whose names appeared in the Leaks.

Responding to a question from Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) during Question Hour, the Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar, however said that out of 444, notices in 150 cases were not issued because those were not traceable due to incomplete particulars.

He said the FBR was also pursuing those 242 cases which were declared as time-barred during tenure of the last government. “No law of the land stops us from pursuing cases which were declared as time-barred,” he said adding no investigation took place in those 242 cases in the past.

He further informed that the FBR was collecting data of Pakistanis whose names appeared in Panama Leaks. Besides, he said so far the FBR had received information of 96,000 undeclared accounts. On the occasion, Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha of PML-N pointed out benami property of Aleema Khan, sister of Prime Minister Imran Khan, had also been discovered in Dubai.

Hammad Azhar informed the opposition member action would be taken without any discrimination if any name is traced in the process of investigations in any case.

The minister said that so far, demand of Rs10.9 billion has been created in 15 cases, out of which as sum of Rs6.2 billion has been recovered while in remaining cases of Panama Leaks, the investigation is in progress.

Qaisar Shaikh, the PML-N member pointed out that the PTI government had claimed that it would raise revenue collection from Rs400 billion to Rs600 billion in first 100 days of its government but to the contrary, the revenue had gone down by Rs160 billion in 80 days.

The minister of state said the PTI faced shortfall of Rs125 billion due to inherited problems. However, he said the revenue currently was better than corresponding period of the last fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Minister for Planning and Development Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar in written reply to a question said that present government attaches great importance to cooperation in agriculture sector with Chinese under CPEC.

A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed during the Prime Minister’s visit to China to further expedite cooperation in this sector which will include ministerial level visits and expert and technical people level visit.

Under the MoU, both countries would cooperate in conservation of genetic resources for livestock, poultry and aquatic products, conduct joint research on conventional and genetically modified varieties of seed breeding, precision agriculture, biotechnology and biological application for disease and pest control .