ISLAMABAD: A three-member committee, led by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Tariq Bajwa, has been tasked by the Supreme Court with developing guidelines to retrieve money stashed abroad illegally by Pakistani citizens in banks and properties.

The other members of the committee are Finance Secretary Arif Ahmed Khan and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairperson who have been given a week to come up with concrete solutions and actionable plans.

The directives to set up the committee were issued by a three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, that was hearing a suo motu case regarding the illegal transfer of money from Pakistan to foreign countries.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial made it clear that the purpose behind this exercise was not to create panic among the general public, but to point out lacunas in the law by pointing out transfers of large sums and assets by those using illegal channels for this purpose, without paying taxes.

You will be heroes of this country if you manage to do this, CJP tells committee members

Justice Bandial also asked the SBP governor to consider extending incentives to people, rather than discouraging them, so that they would prefer investing in Pakistan or bringing their money back.

He pressed upon the authorities the need to devise formulas and schemes for this, and assured them that the court would help them because the existing machinery had been ineffectual in this regard.

On Thursday, an inland revenue (FBR) member, through Additional Attorney General Muhammad Waqar Rana, told the court that the FBR had recovered Rs6.2 billion recently from two individuals whose names had appeared in the Panama Papers and who were non-resident Pakistanis as well non-tax filers.

The SBP governor also told the court that the FBR had entered into various bilateral treaties with nearly 70 countries, including Switzerland, under which Pakistan could exchange information about individuals who had invested abroad.

The chief justice observed that this was not enough, and added that the members of the committee would be heroes of the country if they managed to devise a way to identify those who had siphoned off their ill-gotten money outside of Pakistan through illegal means.

“Demonstrate to us that you have the best abilities, and show us how the money could be brought back ... you are men of high intelligence,” the chief justice observed.

Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan recalled how Germany had brought back its money from Switzerland and how India had been successful in retrieving information about 800 Indians who had stashed their money abroad.

The chief justice regretted that many individuals had purchased properties in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and even had started investing in Malaysia.

The FBR chairman also informed the court about a new law that was pending approval of the parliament, and was expected to become effective from Sept 2018, under which the automatic exchange of information about such individuals with various countries, under different multilateral agreements, would commence.

He said that Dubai had also verified information about 55 people out of a total of 100, who had purchased properties there using dirty money.

But the chief justice observed that the figure could not be limited to 100 alone, and urged the official to work on devising incentives that would discourage the Hundi (an illegal alternative remittance system running parallel to the regulated banking system).

The AAG told the court that of the 444 names of Pakistanis in the Panama Papers, 293 notices had been served. He said 232 of them were tax filers and 61 were non-filers, however, the whereabouts of 78 individuals were unknown.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2018