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IN 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
That was then. Now, death can be deferred, thanks to advances in medical science and better nutrition. And taxes, as we now learn, can be reduced and even entirely avoided due to the efforts of law practices like Mossack Fonseca, and tax lawyers who bend every rule in the book.
When the so-called Panama Papers made headlines around the world, a wave of self-righteous hypocrisy swept Pakistan. The thought that Nawaz Sharif’s family — together with other politicians and businessmen — held offshore accounts in Panama caused our chattering classes to explode in a paroxysm of rage.
Ordinary folk don’t really care if politicians are corrupt.
But please give me a break. We have all known since the mid-1990s that our prime minister and his family had four flats in London’s expensive Mayfair district. And Senator Rehman Malik was dealing in real estate in the UK before he wormed his way into Benazir Bhutto’s good books while she was in exile.
Ditto all the others named but not shamed in the Panama Papers: these are all wealthy people who, to avoid taxes and secure their ill-gained fortunes, have parked their funds abroad. In itself, opening an account in another country is not illegal, provided you inform the tax authorities.
Here, jurisdictions become cloudy: Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani with property in the UK owned by holding companies registered in Panama, and controlled by his children. More to the point, what is the source of the funds that allowed him to buy the expensive real estate in London in the first place? Was it legally earned? Did he pay taxes on the money? And was it transferred to London through legal banking channels?
But while these — and many more — questions are roiling the political scenario in Pakistan and making for animated TV chat shows, they are hardly setting the Ravi on fire. The truth is that ordinary people don’t really care if politicians are corrupt; in fact, they expect them to line their pockets.
Despite all the sound and fury generated over the years by charges of graft at every level, the issue has never gained much traction among the public. Zardari and the PPP were turfed out by the electorate three years ago not for their unending sleaze, but for their gross incompetence and the absence of law and order in much of the country.
None of this is meant to absolve the Sharifs, the Saifullahs and the Bhutto network of the stigma of being thus publicly disgraced. But as we all know, it’s water off a duck’s back for them. Nawaz Sharif has offered a judicial probe, but should one be constituted, I have little doubt that it will join all the other such investigations in the graveyard of forgotten inquiries.
Documents will be sought. Excuses will be made. Endless delays will take place. And before we know it, elections will become due, and the whole thing will vanish from public memory. But Pakistan is not alone in kicking the can down the road: the Chilcot enquiry was set up in 2009 to examine the UK’s role in the 2003 Gulf war. The British people are still waiting for the report.
In our haste to denounce the prime minister and his family over the Panama affair, we forget that real estate developers in Dubai routinely advertise their flats and houses in the Pakistani media. Does anybody ask who are the Pakistanis who spent over 30 billion dirhams on property in the Gulf state over the last five years? And how was this money transferred abroad?
Anybody who has bought or sold property is aware of the practice of marking its value down to minimise stamp duty. So why the shock and horror over the Panama Papers?
And yet it’s one thing for a corrupt official or a sleazy businessman to buy a flat in Dubai, and entirely another for the leader of a poor country to own luxury apartments in London, and then attempt to conceal his ownership. When news of Zardari’s ownership of the infamous ‘Surrey Palace’ surfaced during Benazir Bhutto’s second stint, I wrote then that she had lost the moral authority to rule.
I supported the PPP in those days, and recall that, according to a common friend, BB was very upset by my column. “Why has Mazdak turned against me?” she asked angrily, referring to my old pseudonym. Given property prices in the UK, Nawaz Sharif’s Mayfair flats are worth many times Zardari’s Surrey property.
But this scandal goes beyond net worth and tax liability. Ultimately, it is about integrity and concern for the people who put Nawaz Sharif in office. Next time he urges us to pay our taxes, we will be entitled to laugh in his face.
As the late Ardeshir Cowasjee was fond of repeating: “Iss hamam mein sub nangay hein” (“in this bath, all are naked”).
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2016
