Corruption, money-laundering among Pakistan’s ‘most important’ issues

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Monday described corruption and money-laundering as one of the “most important” issues countries like Pakistan are facing today.

In a tweet, he said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had been raising his voice consistently on the issue, and has been asking the rich countries to stop this exploitation of the poor countries.

“Panama, Pandora and now the story of Swiss accounts . . . First, steal the [public] money and then move it abroad,” Fawad said.

Referring to an unnatural alliance between the opposition parties, he said that all money launderers were uniting against the “democratically-elected government”.

The minister’s comments came after an extraordinary data leak from Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most iconic banks. The leak revealed how the bank held hundreds of millions of dollars for heads of state, intelligence officials, sanctioned businessmen and human rights abusers, among many others.

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A self-described whistle-blower leaked the data on more than 18,000 bank accounts, collectively holding more than $100 billion, to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared the data with a nonprofit journalism group, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and 46 other news organisations around the world, including The New York Times.

Credit Suisse’s data leak is not the first such incident to trigger a debate on these lines. The so-called Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers of 2021 all shed light on the secretive workings of banks, law firms and offshore financial-services providers that allow wealthy people and institutions — including those accused of crimes — to move huge sums of money, largely outside the purview of tax collectors or law enforcement.