The Panama stitch-up

Talks initiated by the government to determine the ToR in the matter of investigating the Panama Papers have collapsed

The classic definition of a stitch-up is of an act that places someone in a position in which they will be wrongly blamed for something — usually a crime — or of manipulating a situation to one’s advantage. If the Opposition parties sense that they have been the subject of the latter whilst pursuing the former, they may well have every justification. The talks initiated by the government to determine the Terms of Reference (ToR) in the matter of investigating the Panama Papers have collapsed after the eighth round held on June 14. Neither side could finalise a date for the next meeting and the government has announced that it would decide the matter unilaterally — which would have been its preferred default position anyway.

Both sides now lob accusations of chicanery and trickery and lack of sincerity from their respective entrenched positions; and we are no closer to getting an answer to the innumerable questions that the Panama Papers gave rise to. It now transpires that the Opposition parties themselves are far from unified in how to approach the matter, and it has been a relatively easy job as far as the government is concerned to roll them up and kick them into the long grass, there to wither away over time.

To all intents and purposes, any independent investigation is now the deadest of ducks. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, led by Imran Khan, may now recycle the dharna option, which will ultimately be as fruitless as it was the last time they trotted out the speakers, the DJ and the music for a prolonged street party. The government knows, as does the family of the prime minister, that offshore assets and dealings are protected by a spiderweb of privacy legislation both here in Pakistan as well as globally, and banks and other local and global financial entities are not going to violate these as much for fear of cutting off their noses to spite their faces as any sense of transparency or probity. Thus we offer condolences to the Panama Papers investigation, an ignoble stitch-up of which the government is likely and unjustifiably — proud. One can only hope that better sense prevails on both sides and somehow a consensus is reached on this most trickiest of issues.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2016.

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