Mandviwalla for probing whether money invested abroad taxed or not

ISLAMABAD: Instead of making efforts to probe the Panama Leaks abroad in the wake of absence of legal framework with states known as tax havens, Senate Standing Committee on Finance Chairman Saleem Mandviwalla said that there was a need to undertake an investigation within Pakistan to ascertain whether money invested abroad was declared through filed tax returns or not.

“The Finance Committee will convene a meeting to ask relevant authorities to sign OECD conventions as India had already done. Pakistan does not have Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) agreements with states known as tax havens,” Saleem Mandviwalla told reporters after chairing a committee meeting here at the Parliament House on Thursday.

The government, he said, should sit with the opposition to amend Terms of Reference (ToRs) for inquiry commission and instead of focusing abroad the investigation should take place to ascertain whether invested money abroad were declared in tax returns in Pakistan or not.

Earlier, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenues held its meeting under chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwalla in which Senator Sassui Palijo severely criticised Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and alleged that rules were changed several times since 2007 and for certain period from January to June 2013 the Chief Statistician PBS had assumed office without taking oath that ultimately paved the way for audit para for utilising unauthorised money.

The DG PBS Asif Bajwa replied that no rules were changed and he was forced to continue assuming office as acting DG because then President (without mentioning name of Asif Ali Zardari) had not given time for oath taking ceremony so finally acting president had taken his oath.

Senator Sassui Palijo insisted that the rules were changed several times so chairman of the committee decided to convene another meeting by next week to ascertain facts on this issue. When chairman of the committee raised the issue of errors in Statistical Book for 2014-15, the DG PBS replied that this document was comprised of 586 pages and there were 6 editorial related mistakes for which the corrigendum would be issued. Secretary Statistics Division Shahid Hussain Asad said that it was internal communication for which they had sought comments from the PBS but there was no issue related to raising doubt on authenticity of official data.

The chairman of the committee also said why allegations of figure fudging surfaced again and again, the DG PBS said that they would be ready to brief the committee about the working and procedures adopted by PBS to collect the data.

The Secretary Economic Affairs Division (EAD) Tariq Bajwa informed the committee that Pakistan required contributing over $200 million for Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as Islamabad had paid first installment of $40 million during the current financial year. The remaining four installments will be paid to AIIB on annual basis.

It was also brought into the notice of the committee that millions of dollars remained unutilised which were committed by donors but the provinces were not fully implementing projects. The committee directed EAD to get details from the provinces regarding unutilised committed amounts from the provinces.

On the issue of dwelling upon International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs), the committee decided to take up non existence of proper law to control NGOs sector in the country. So far 26 INGOs were registered by the Ministry of Interior under newly devised mechanism and visa regime also tightened for foreigners visiting Pakistan in guise of INGOs.