The rich and corrupt hiding their wealth and incomes

Ever since the European Colonial powers vacated Africa, Asia and Latin America, attempts were made to use official transfer of financial resources to the nations that, one way or other, were harmed by colonial rule. In today’s work this would be called “reparations”, transfer of money from those who benefitted from those they dominated. Slavery was the worst form of this type of domination but there were other types of suppressions. In several official conferences and meetings the former colonial powers made commitments to reverse the flow of resources that had occurred during the colonial period. The most often used measure was the proportion of the collective GDP of rich countries that would be provided as aid to poor nations. Early in the debate on the issue it was agreed that the rich would transfer to those that were poor and underdeveloped at least 0.7 per cent of the former’s GDP. But this target was more often missed than realised. Now the world has learnt that another type of transfer is now being made, from developing to developed countries.

First there were the Panama Papers made public in 2016 and now, five years later, we have the Pandora Papers. Both provided detailed accounts of how the rich were concealing their wealth and incomes. The income part of the revelation was important since most countries, while not directly taxing wealth, taxed incomes. Those who wanted to pay little or no tax hid how much they earned and how those earnings were made. The rich in Pakistan figured in both reports but there was not enough in them to provide information to the authorities to take some action. In this context, I should provide a bit of history.

The request did not come directly from Prime Minister Imran Khan who had then taken over the top administrative job in the country following his party’s victory in the elections of May 2018. I was asked if I could do a short paper for the new prime minister outlining my view of the priorities the new administration should follow now that he and his political party held in their hands the reins of political and economic power. The paper was requested by a good friend of the new prime minister with the indication that it would be passed on to him. I was hesitant, but was repeatedly pressed to put my thoughts on paper. I finally agreed.

There are few in Pakistan who follow the discipline of “psephology” — the science of elections — let alone practise it. This asks the people why for what they voted. Looking briefly at the census data and the data from the Election Commission, I had come to the conclusion that the youth in Pakistan’s urban centres were Khan’s strongest supporters. They had brought him to power in 2018 and are likely to keep him there in 2023 when the next general elections are held. Those under the age of 30 make up the bulk of the population. Pakistan, at 24 years of median age — the age at which half of the population is younger — has one of the world’s youngest populations which, like the youth everywhere, have an interest in seeing an improvement in their economic wellbeing. They also want to participate in the politics of the countries in which they live. The Arab Spring of 2011 was a vivid reflection of these aspirations of the youth.

The urban youth were pleased that in the 2018 campaign, Imran Kahn had put a great deal of emphasis on the eradication of corruption in the country. However, in my short paper, I said that while the subject of corruption had drawn the attention of the youth, he should not promise that if he were to gain power this social evil would be eradicated within a few months. I wrote that corruption in most parts of the world takes time to control let alone eliminate. I am told that after reading my paper, Imran Khan said that while he liked most of what I had said, he did not agree that he would take long to finish off corruption. He has tried; he and his government have gone after corruption in higher places. However, there is enough evidence to suggest that it still dominates a great deal of what the government does.

The Washington Post partnered with a number of other media organisations to collect what are called the Pandora Papers. At the time of this writing (October 7) half a dozen articles based on more than 11.9 million records that were obtained had appeared in the Washington newspaper. This work was done by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). “The trove, dubbed the Pandora Papers, exceeds the dimensions of the Panama Papers investigation five years ago,” wrote the first Washington Post coverage of the Pandora Papers. The data that appeared in the Panama Papers was drawn from a single law firm, but the new material encompasses records from 14 separate financial services entities operating in countries and territories including Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Belize and the British Virgin Islands.

In a note to the readers of her newspaper, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee wrote that the decision to publish a series of articles on the Pandora data was to “shine light on aspects of the international financial system that have operated with little or no oversight.” She assured her readers that “in closely examining thousands of documents over many months, The Post and its partners have found no inaccuracy or that the paper’s release was targeted at any specific individual or government.”

Thus far there have been only passing references to Pakistan in the first couple of stories. In one of them, The Post said that “millions of dollars were held by members of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government.” The newspaper also published in the first issue in which it reported the findings of the ICIJ research, several reactions of the world leaders whose countries received a lot of attention in the early coverage. The only reaction that was not defensive to the Pandora findings was that of Imran Khan. “In Pakistan, a prime minister who campaigned on anti-corruption platform, promised to investigate every citizen mentioned in the records,” wrote the analysts of one of the stories. The newspaper emphasised that “the documents contain no suggestion that Khan himself owns offshore companies.” In tweets that echoed his campaign-trail rhetoric, Imran Khan criticised “’ruling elites of the developing world,’ who he said are ‘contributing to thousands of poverty-related deaths’. He said his government welcomes the leak for ‘exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites’ and said global economic inequality should be viewed as a crisis akin to climate change. My government will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Paper and if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action.”

According to Pakistani newspapers that were also following the story, some 700 Pakistani names figured in the Pandora collection. Imran Khan moved fast; on October 3, a day after the Western newspapers began to publish stories using the Pandora data, the Prime Minister announced the formation of a high-powered cell to investigate whether the 700 people from Pakistan who were identified as having stashed assets abroad. The names included members of the federal government, army generals, and heads of media houses. The prime minister said that the members of his political party would have to clear their names. I will follow the story in these columns as it develops.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2021.

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