Opposition preps seven blunt questions for PM Nawaz over Panama leaks

Wants to know Sharif family’s sources of wealth, their properties abroad and taxes paid over past 30 years

ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties have prepared a list of questions they want Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to answer when he will attend the ongoing session of the National Assembly on Friday.

The premier agreed to come to the house after the opposition parties said they would not end their ongoing boycott of both houses of parliament unless Nawaz Sharif clarified his family’s position on revelations in the Panama Papers that his three children had secret offshore holdings.



The opposition wants to ask the prime minister to disclose in the house his family’s sources of wealth, their properties and bank accounts abroad and their net worth and the taxes they have paid over the past 30 years.

The questions were prepared in a meeting of the opposition parties chaired by Leader of Opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan on Wednesday. After opposition lawmakers staged a walkout from the National Assembly Wednesday afternoon, MPs from the PPP, PTI, MQM and JI joined Senator Ahsan in his chamber in the Parliament House to thrash out the questions.

The questionnaire was later handed over to Leader of the House in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq when the upper house was in session.

Later while speaking to the media outside the Parliament House, Senator Ahsan said Premier Nawaz should answer these seven ‘simple’ questions. The questions have been given to the prime minister in advance so that he could come to the house prepared.



Senator Ahsan assured the government that if the responses satisfied them, the opposition parties would call off their protest and ‘sit quietly.



Seven questions

Firstly, the opposition wants the prime minister to tell the house what interest he or his family have in the Mayfair apartments. When they were purchased, where the funds came from and whether income tax was filed?

Secondly, the opposition seeks a clarification on the statements issued by Nawaz’s wife, his two sons and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan over the years.

Thirdly , the opposition wants to know that since when Nawaz has been living in these apartments and whether he is aware that on March 18, 1999, the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, ordered the Sharif family to pay $32 million as debt owed to Al-Taufiq Company for Investment Funds Ltd. The prime minister has also been asked to indicate the source of legitimate funds from which this debt was paid and whether it is a fact that £7 million were raised against the apartments from the Deutsche Bank in Switzerland.

Fourthly, the opposition wants to know the names of and the total number of offshore companies owned by or registered in the name of the Sharif family, and what was the net value of the assets of such companies, bank accounts and properties.



Fifthly, the opposition asks what properties are or have been held by the prime minister or his family, purchased either through frontmen/shell companies or otherwise, between 1985-2016 and what was the source of income tax-paid-funds during this period.

Sixthly, the opposition wants to know if it is true that the prime minister’s children 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 whether they are bound to file tax returns and declare their worldwide income, including incomes from offshore companies and bank accounts.

And lastly, the opposition asks how much income tax, year-wise since 1985-2016, has been paid by the prime minister and members of his family and the assets owned by each of them.

Govt rejoinder

In a tit-for-tat, the government asked some questions from opposition leaders.

State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali asked Senator Ahsan about an LPG tender he had allegedly secured for his wife during the PPP government, and alleged corruption worth billions of rupees done in the past.

“We will appear before every legal forum to face every question,” Ali told the media outside parliament where he was flanked by Privatisation Commission Chairman Muhammad Zubair, and PML-N leaders Talal Chaudhry and Daniyal Aziz.

Chaudhry clarified there was no contradiction in the interviews Hassan Nawaz had given in1999 and those given by his brother Hussain Nawaz in 2016. “The London apartments had been purchased legally in 2006,” he claimed. “Before that, these apartments were rented.”

He claimed the premier had no links with the Al-Taufiq case, adding that Nawaz Sharif did not own an offshore company and has already disclosed his income and assets, while he has paid all applicable taxes on them, records for which were present with the concerned departments.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2016.