Pakistan: Inquiry into the “illegal, unnecessary” release of Chief of Army Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa’s family tax records was launched on Monday by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
According to Geo News, Dar promised to look into the problem right away and requested a report within 24 hours.
According to a statement from the Finance Division, “This is clearly a violation of the complete confidentiality of tax information that the law provides.”
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) data breach and tax law infringement will be investigated right now, according to the statement, according to Geo News.
Dar has instructed Tariq Mehmood Pasha, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Revenue, to personally head the investigation, take ownership, and present a report within 24 hours in light of this significant mistake by the as-of-yet unidentified functionaries, the statement continued.
Notably, less than two weeks before Bajwa’s term is scheduled to come to an end, a damning report has revealed the sharp rise in wealth of close family members of the most powerful person in the nation over a period of six years.
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Revelations by Pakistani journalist Ahmad Noorani
In a piece for Fact Focus, Pakistani journalist Ahmad Noorani uncovered how Bajwa’s direct and extended family members launched a new company, acquired farmhouses in well-known Pakistani cities, and acquired overseas real estate, all while earning billions of dollars.
Numerous pieces of information are used to corroborate Fact Focus’s investigative report, which examines the financial transactions involving Bajwa’s family, including his wife Ayesha Amjad, his daughter-in-law Mahnoor Sabir, and other close relatives.
Noorani wrote, “Within six years, both families become billionaires, started an international business, purchased multiple foreign properties, started transferring capital abroad, become owners of commercial plazas, commercial plots, huge farmhouses in Islamabad and Karachi, an immense real estate portfolio in Lahore, and so on. The current market value of the – known – assets and businesses within Pakistan and outside accumulated by the Bajwa family during the last six years is more than Rs12.7 billion.”
The Pakistani writer noticed how Bajwa changed the wealth declaration for 2013 three times between 2013 and 2017 based on tax returns and other financial data, following his appointment as the nation’s army chief.
He wrote in fact focus, “In the revised wealth statement for the year 2013, General Bajwa added a commercial plot in phase VIII of DHA Lahore. He claimed that in fact he had purchased this plot back in 2013 but forgot to declare. He would continue to forget for the next four years and could only remember his omissions in 2017, one year after becoming army chief.”
Ayesha Amjad claimed eight “Any Other Assets” in 2016, but she provided very little information. On April 17, 2018, when Bajwa was appointed as the head of the Pakistani army, this was changed. She stated that for the prior fiscal year, 2015, the net value of her assets was zero.
Her wealth increased from zero in 2016 to Rs 2.2 billion in just six years, “not including residential plots, commercial plots, and houses given by the army to her husband,” according to a report.
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Mahnoor Sabir, Bajwa’s daughter-in-law, has seen an equally remarkable shift in luck
“The total worth of a young woman’s declared assets was zero in the last week of October 2018, it jumped to more than one billion (Rs 1271 million) just one week before her marriage on November 02, 2018,” according to Ahmad Noorani.
The filing retroactively stated that Mahnoor Sabir purchased these properties in the tax years 2014, 2015, and 2016, even though Mahnoor Sabir declared them to the FBR in 2018.
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