Retrieving the loot

New government desires to bring back to Pakistan monies that are currently elsewhere

Much is being made by the new government of its desire — indeed imperative — to bring back to Pakistan monies that are currently elsewhere. The sums involved are vast, in the trillions of rupees, and the complexities of repatriating them labyrinthine. Whilst the haste of the government may be admirable there are a number of purely practical impediments. A task force has been set up with a brief to report in two weeks as to how overseas funds may be returned, and it has met once attended by a range of officials and agencies having an interest or responsibility for this difficult task.

Perhaps the principal hurdle is that Pakistan has little leverage with foreign governments when it comes to bringing back any monies, large or small. Internationally the way by which this is done multilaterally is via the Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) framework. Unfortunately Pakistan is not a signatory of the MLA relative to key states such as the USA, the UK, Canada, the Emirates and Malaysia which have all at various times been identified as repositories of offshore wealth.

Secondly, not all offshore wealth is illegally acquired or deposited and separating out that which is legal is not as difficult to say the least. Thirdly, there is a purely internal lack of preparedness in terms of domestic legislation that would underpin the operation, and interagency cooperation is weak to non-existent. Such coordination would be essential to the success of the project. Pakistan is going to have to lodge criminal cases against the individuals whose funds it seeks to repatriate in countries that are unlikely to use the same benchmarks of criminality and will be alert to political motivation in any proposed prosecution.

This is a government that is desperate for money from whatever source — the privatisation of a range of government assets is also being considered — but none of this is a quick fix and a two-week deadline to come up with plug-and-play solutions is naïve at best. By all means bring back money illegally parked offshore — but let us not waste time and energy with the hunting of the Snark.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.