ISLAMABAD: The combined opposition wants Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to disclose whether his children have ever held any stakes in the Sharif family’s industrial units and, if so, whether they had filed their tax returns.

This is one of the seven queries contained in the opposition’s questionnaire, which was unveiled at Parliament House on Wednesday by Leader of Opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf parliamentary leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Accompanied by Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Mian Attique, Aftab Sherpao of the Qaumi Watan Party and PTI’s Shireen Mazari, Mr Ahsan read out the questionnaire, which included queries about the ownership of three apartments in London’s Mayfair locality.

If the prime minister denies ownership of these properties, the questionnaire seeks an explanation for three statements: the first made by Mrs Kalsoom Nawaz Sharif in The Guardian, where she claimed that the apartments had been purchased to educate their children; a second report published by The Independent asserting that Nielson Enterprises Ltd and Nescol Ltd were the owners of the apartments; and, thirdly, the statement of the interior minister during a press conference asserting that the prime minister had purchased the apartments around 1993-94.

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“What properties are or have been held; beneficial, benami or otherwise bought and sold, by the Prime Minister and his family during the period 1985-2016 and what source of income tax-paid incomes were available to the prime minister and his family during the aforesaid period,” reads another question.

“We want to afford him the opportunity to prepare himself. He should answer these questions comprehensively and on the basis of that statement, other members can ask further questions,” Mr Ahsan said after reading out the questions.

“These are straightforward, innocent questions and we expect that the prime minister will want to respond to them. If he can satisfy us, we will quiet down,” Mr Ahsan noted.

“We have asked the PM to take the house into confidence over questions related to his family, but this does not mean that the combined opposition is backing down from its stance on the terms of reference (ToR) of the inquiry commission. Our principled stand remains unchanged,” said Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

He said the government had indicated the possibility of forming a negotiating team, headed by Senator Ishaq Dar, to hold talks with the opposition over the ToR. He urged the government to constitute the team quickly, so that the opposition could also reciprocate and both sides could come up with a ToR that was agreeable to both sides. Mr Qureshi added that more questions would arise once the prime minister’s response was received.

When asked about reports that the army chief had called on the prime minister to expedite the investigation into Panamagate, Mr Ahsan wryly noted, “The opposition believes in parliament and democracy, so we have no interest in this matter, nor do we give it any importance.”

Earlier, before walking out of Senate proceedings on Wednesday, Mr Ahsan had formally handed over the questionnaire to Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq — to share with the prime minister.

Govt response

After the opposition’s presser, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leaders Daniyal Aziz, Talal Chaudhry, Mohammad Zubair and Abid Sher Ali presented their own responses to the opposition’s questions, which did not specifically address the opposition’s queries.

Mr Chaudhry claimed that Hussain Nawaz had admitted in a television interview that the Mayfair properties had been owned by his family since 2006.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not own any offshore companies, nor was he a part of the Al-Tawfiq company, he said, insisting that the PM had paid all his taxes. “The details of his tax returns are with the relevant department,” he said, referring to the Federal Board of Revenue.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2016