The financial side of the JIT findings

One can question why it is not covering the plunder of public money and money-laundering

ISLAMABAD: As a reporter busy sniffing wrongdoing in tax administration and policy for the past 25 years, I feel compelled to analyse the JIT report. It is important for readers to know what the report says about the ‘lies’ told at the Supreme Court, and the JIT — on the basis of which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif can face disqualification at the end of the Supreme Court proceedings starting Monday, July 17.

The report reveals the following three aspects of Nawaz Sharif and his family’s possessions; the assets were not declared as per the tax laws, lies were told in the Supreme Court about their assets, those appearing before the JIT made misstatements and could not answer questions satisfactorily. All this can be true and could be worrisome for the ruling family.



The JIT report, however, did not specify the following; Nawaz Sharif and his family was involved in the plunder of public money, he and his family committed the crime of laundering money obtained by plundering public money to purchase assets abroad.

Declaration of assets and keeping money sources beyond documentation is a big crime as far as a public servant or public representative is concerned. In the post-JIT scenario, it is for the court to decide whether the allegations and the JIT findings on this count are valid in the eyes of the law. No other forum has jurisdiction in such matters. Nonetheless, a boisterous political verdict in the name of ‘public verdict’ echoes on the media these days and this is bound to echo until the Supreme Court’s final verdict.

Nobody can prejudge a person or a family before the court verdict comes out. One can only make a comment on whether the JIT acted according to the mandate (or the ToRs) given to it by the Supreme Court.

Obviously, it is a lengthy process to dig out facts about the plunder of public money, to conclude if money laundering was committed, and, to judicially announce if assets on the foreign shores were made out of the laundered money. Two months are not enough to complete this process and frame charges on the basis of findings if any.

But if the reader remembers, the entire talk before the court instituted the JIT was about money laundering and purchase of assets abroad out of the laundered money. Where is that talk now? Only the government side is claiming mentioning that the charges of plundering the public money and purchasing foreign assets out of that money is not even discussed by the JIT report.



The political din is so distracting that this issue does not come under discussion on television talk circus. The JIT has provided damning material to frame a case of under-declaration against the prime minister and members of his family. Tax laws are pretty clear on this count and one can easily conclude that the Sharifs are facing hard days on the court-floor and in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) where the JIT findings can be taken up for investigation.

The question one can ask is why the court and the JIT not chose to cover the side of plundering public money and money-laundering. If this side had been covered in this fabulous case, Pakistan could have obtained a treasure of investigation experience in going after the corrupt elements and the money trail exposed could have helped in unearthing a colossal amount of foreign exchange loss to Pakistan.

This experience and the information obtained in the exercise could also have helped to unearth a chain of corrupt elements in the institutions where plunder is the order of the day. It was a difficult process to undertake. If the court and the JIT did not elect to go for it, one can understand.

NAB has been making recoveries from a number of bureaucrats and members of the contractors’ community via plea bargain. NAB officials have been successful in doing so mainly by use of coercive regulations of the NAB Ordinance but there is a pile of information on the trails of money acquired and laundered, which, if utilised in the Panama Case, could be of great help.

The writer has worked with major newspapers and specialises in the analysis of public finance and geo-economics of terrorism

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2017.

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