Daily Times

Life-time disqualification of Nawaz Sharif by five-member bench of Supreme Court unanimously has proved the point that process of real accountability has started. In Pakistan, the rich and mighty — greedy politicians, unscrupulous businessmen and dishonest civil-military bureaucrats — keep on singing the mantra of ‘patriotism’ (sic) but shamelessly indulge in rent-seeking and tax evasion. The recent reports of acquiring work permits (Iqamas) by sitting Prime Minister, ministers and many other politicians, who did not hesitate to tell lies for obtaining the same, have once again exposed the culture of deceit and cheat, now considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘normal’ in our milieu. Regrettably, the obtainers of these iqamas have been even justifying non-disclosure of their emoluments from abroad in tax returns. Apathy towards such wrongdoings and its support by a section of media in the name of “saving democracy” testifies to the moral degradation that is totally lamentable.

Large-scale tax evasion and the existence of an outsized black economy while resulting in colossal loss of revenue to the State, tends to reduce the built-in elasticity of a fiscal system to the extent that tax evaded income is spent on goods and services that help to generate inflationary pressures and raise prices of real property. This is the story of Pakistan since 1977. The money-hungry and morally-decadent ruling elites of Pakistan have proved to be totally incompetent to meet the grave challenge of curbing terrorism, money laundering, and ever-growing black money. The reason is simple — corrupt police and politicians protect criminals for self-aggrandisement. The enormous amount of money (largely from illegitimate sources) has been a lethal weapon in the hands of mafias who managed to control of economy as well as the government. The judgement of Supreme Court delivered on July 28, 2017 is a beginning to change this scenario.

According to a conservative estimate, Rs 1600 billion is generated every year in Pakistan by the parallel economy (informal but not illegal). Add to this, black money generated through smuggling in goods and narcotics, arms trade and proceeds of other organised crimes, the quantum of which is not less than Rs 900 billion. This amount to a whooping Rs 2500 billion (see details in Pakistan: drug-trap to Debt-trap). When the presence of black money is so glaring, then why its criminal accumulation and generation is not revealed and the offenders punished, is a question which has been baffling the minds of honest citizens. They ask, whether it is on account of lack of political will, or rampant corruption, or collusion of tax dodgers and the tax administrators at defrauding the revenue, or the political system or the ineffectiveness and defectiveness of laws, or the pervasive stubborn indifference of the citizens towards their duties?

Tax evaders and money launderers in Pakistan hardly need any international channel for whitening their ill-gotten wealth. All support from the State is available. The State Bank and tax authorities do not pose any question about the ‘source’ if anybody brings money (earned from rent-seeking, or any illicit activity or even one’s own untaxed money and hires services of local money exchangers to depict it as remittance) in Pakistan through normal banking channels. Tax evaders, drug-arms-human traffickers, rent-seekers and terrorist outfits remit billions of rupees into the country every year using this facility.

Section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 facilitates criminals and the corrupt to white their ill-gotten money through banking channels. This concession, aimed at bringing much-needed foreign exchange has succeeded immensely — in 2016-17 foreign remittances crossed US$ 20 billion mark despite declining trend after crisis in Saudi Arabia and other countries of Middle East. According to studies, about 60 percent are genuine as these are by workers and expats while the rest are attributed to Pakistani criminal syndicates and tax dodgers. They launder dirty money through State patronage by exploiting sections 5 and 9 of Protection of Economic Reforms Act, 1992 and make neat money by investing in real estate and stock market, two very lucrative avenues in Pakistan.

It is no secret that many public office holders and government servants have been transferring huge amounts of money abroad but no effort has ever been made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to invoke the mutual legal assistance provision and then to proceed towards confiscation and retrieval of the money

The rich and mighty Pakistanis have transferred billions abroad the proof of which is available — investment of billions of dollars in UAE properties, offshore companies as revealed in Panama Papers and Swiss accounts, just to mention a few. There has been no political will to take action against those who remitted funds abroad without disclosing the sources and filing tax returns in Pakistan. Record of other countries on this front is noteworthy. Nigeria got back $700 million of its plundered wealth back from Switzerland and Philippines recovered its $684 million looted by Ferdinand Marcos. Peru recovered nearly over $180 million stolen by its former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos from several jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Cayman Islands and the United States. Mexico witnessed the repatriation of $74 million of the $110 million stolen by its ruler Raul Salinas, the governments of Mali and Argentina also received $2.5 million and $4.5 million respectively from Switzerland.

It is no secret that many public office holders and government servants have been transferring huge amounts of money abroad but no effort has ever been made by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to invoke mutual legal assistance provision and then to proceed for confiscation and retrieval of the money. Obviously, when state institutions become captive in the hands of mafias, one cannot expect anything from watchdogs like NAB, FIA, FBR, SECP, SBP etc.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan finally demonstrated that it was not to stay calm anymore on what has been happening even after revelations of tax evasion in Panama Papers. Before the pronouncement of judgement, there were many pessimists, rather sceptics, who claimed nothing would happen to the three-time elected mighty Punjabi leader. Their assertion was based either on well-known conspiracy theories or oft-repeated phrase, Yeh Pakistan hai jahaan pesay ka raaj hai. (This is Pakistan where money rules). Time proved they were wrong.

The writer is Advocate Supreme Court and Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Email: ikram@huzaimaikram.com; Twitter: @drikramulhaq

Published in Daily Times, July 30^th , 2017.