Panama Papers: PM to visit parliament on Monday

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will visit the National Assembly on Monday to answer the questions prepared by the joint opposition over Panama Papers allegations.

The Premier was scheduled to arrive in the parliament today (Friday).

The joint opposition has framed a list of seven questions before the prime minister.

Meanwhile, the opposition maintained that it will ask the prime minister questions in the parliament.

Pakistan People’s Party’s stalwart Aitezaz Ahsan said; “In the parliament PM only has to answer seven questions. The inquiry commission will ask 700 questions. Why is the prime minister scared?”

Questions of the opposition;

The questions which were prepared by the opposition are as follows.

Will the prime minister disclose: The interest that he or any member of his family/relative has or had had in Apartment Numbers 16, 16-A, 17, 17-A in Avenfield House, 118 Park Lane, Mayfair, London, including the date of first purchase by any such members/relatives?

The source of funds for the purchase and whether income tax had been paid on the income that generated the amount necessary for the first purchase or subsequent transfer of interests in them by him or his family/relative?

Can the prime minister clarify which of the following contradictory statements are correct. A statement published in The Guardian London 10th April 2000, wherein Mrs Kalsoom Nawaz Sharif claimed that apartments had been purchased to educate their children;

The report published by The Independent, London 19th October 1998 asserting that the prime minister’s family through Neison Enterprises Ltd and Nescol Ltd were the owners of the apartments. The statement of his Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan during a press conference on August 8, 2012 asserting that the prime minister had purchased the apartments in 1993-94. Contradictory statements of Hassan Nawaz Sharif in an interview in BBC’s HardTalk programme in 1999 and of Hussan Nawaz Sharif in Express TV’s programme Kal Tak in 2016.

when has the prime minister been residing in the aforesaid apartments and is he aware that on 18th March 1999, the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, gave a judgment ordering the Sharif family to pay US$32 million as debt owed to Al-Taufiq Company for Investment Funds Ltd? And would he indicate the source of legitimate funds from which the debt was paid? Is it a fact that subsequently a sum of 7 million pounds sterling was raised against the apartments from the Deutshe Bank in Switzerland?

What are the names and total offshore companies owned or registered in the names of the members of the family or the prime minister himself and what is the net value of the assets of such value of the assets of such companies, bank accounts and properties.

What properties are or have been held beneficially, benami or otherwise bought and sold by the prime minister and his family during the period 1985-2016 and what source of income tax-paid funds were available to the prime minister and his family during the period aforesaid period?

Is it true that the prime minister’s son and daughter hold or have held substantial shares in industrial units in Pakistan owned by the Sharif family including Ittefaq Sugar Mills and Chaudhry Sugar Mills and are/were thereby bound to file tax returns and declare their worldwide income including incomes from offshore companies and bank accounts.

How much income tax, year-wise since 1985, has been paid by the prime minister and members of his family and the assets in the name of each such members? While speaking to the media after presenting the seven questions for the prime minister, Aitzaz said the opposition is apprising the premier about opposition’s questionnaire so that he may prepare himself for it when he comes to the Parliament. “Our seven questions are very innocent and the prime minister should respond as we did not want to give him surprise when he comes to the Parliament on Friday,” he added.