Benami Adjudicating Authority remains non-functional

ISLAMABAD: The much-hyped Benami Adjudicating Authority (BAA), in the fold of FBR, has remained dysfunctional for the past 11 months, mainly because the top 1 percent of politically entrenched elites own 22 percent of wealth.

Top official sources confirmed to The News that the summaries forwarded for making appointments of three BAA members several times in the last 11 months have been dumped owing to ‘unexplained reasons’.

The prime minister has approved appointments to the BAA, but the summary in this regard could not be placed on the agenda of the federal cabinet in the last 11 months.

When the FBR spokesman was contacted, he explained that efforts were underway to fulfill the purpose of the right man for the right job, adding that the Anti Benami Initiative (ABI) was very important, so the appointments to key positions would be accomplished with extraordinary care.

A top official said the summary was moved and then reverted with some objections, but now it was dumped.

Pakistan’s top one percent multibillionaire owners possess lofty assets. They have parked their wealth and assets in the names of others but managed to remain untouched despite enactment of the Benami Law in 2017. After its inception from July 2019 to December 2020, the Benami Adjudicating Authority performed well, but later on it proved a non-starter.

The veracity of the misuse of Benami could be gauged from the fact that with a Gini-Coefficient of 0.3, the top 1% of the population holds almost 22% of total wealth, the bottom 50% only 4%, and around 40% of the population lives below the poverty line.