Is Musharraf Corrupt?

[Riaz Haq]

A story alleging corruption by former President Pervez Musharraf has appeared recently in Pakistan's Jang Media Group publications  in the aftermath of the Panama Leaks that revealed the names of 220 rich and powerful Pakistanis owning offshore accounts.

Politicians Dominate Off-shore Company Owners in Panama Leaks

The Panama Papers show that Mir Shakeel ur Rehman, the owner of Jang Media Group, owns offshore accounts, as do the family of the current Prime Minister Mr. Nawaz Sharif and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated in 2007. Other Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers include prominent businessmen, politicians, judges, bureaucrats, etc. allegedly involved in corruption. The names of former President Pervez Musharraf or his family members are not among the 220 names from Pakistan.

The Jang Media Group story titled "How Mr clean Musharraf became a billionaire" lists accounts held by Mr. Musharraf in Dubai and London with balances adding up to millions of US dollars. Farrukh Durrani, the story writer, demands that the commission of inquiry looking into Panama Papers also investigate the sources of Mr. Musharraf's wealth. Here's an excerpt of the story:

"Despite having such huge chunk of amount in his offshore accounts, neither did any investigative agency nor did the accountability bureau question him how he got billions of rupees in his foreign accounts. However the commission of inquiry appointed by prime minister in the wake of Panama Leaks has a broader scope and powers which can question ex-dictator Pervez Musharraf from where he got billions of rupees which are kept in his offshore accounts."

Knowing what I know about how western leaders like former US President Clinton and his wife Hillary became wealthy after leaving office, let me suggest to Mr. Durrani to do his homework as follows:

1. Learn about the lucrative speaker series business which brings hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech to celebrity speakers in the West, particularly the United States. This is a well-established, well-organized business that promotes lecture series featuring prominent speakers where attendees pay hundreds of dollars per person to attend in large numbers.

2. Do research into how many such lectures President Musharraf delivered after retiring from presidency in 2008? How much did he get paid for each? What does it all add up to? Does it add up to more than the reported account balances in Dubai and London?

Let me give a few pointers to Mr. Durrani if he's honestly trying to understand the sources of Mr. Musharraf's wealth:

1. A Newsweek story quoted David Wheeler, President of Embark LLC,  just one of the international public-relations firms trying to land Musharraf as a highly paid keynote speaker, as saying, "The [speaking] fee for Musharraf would be in the $150,000-200,000 range for a day."

2. The Newsweek story further added that "Public-relations executives say the articulate and brash 44-year army veteran's earning power could approach that of former U.S. President Bill Clinton".

3. Here's how an Oregon newspaper "The Oregonian" reported about Musharraf's planned appearance in Portland in 2010:  "The folks who attract big international names to Portland each year have done it again, landing Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former president, to speak here in March. The World Affairs Council of Oregon's 2010 speaker series will also feature Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz; Jane Lubchenco, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration chief administrator; and -- in a face-off --Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Karl Rove, strategist for President George W. Bush."

4. A brochure announcing the Peninsula Speaker Series in the San Francisco Bay Area that included Musharraf as a featured speaker, along with Condeleeza Rice, Laura Tyson and Paul Krugman, showed the ticket prices ranging from $294 to $403 per person.

After Mr. Durrani has had a chance to do his homework, I believe he will realize, if he's honest, that he is being used by his employer to deflect attention of the world and of any investigative commission members from the sins of Mir Shakeel ur Rahman and his rich and powerful friends in high places, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, who have either stolen Pakistan peoples' money and/or cheated on taxes they owe to the Pakistani treasury. Any investigative commission must not allow itself to be used to pursue vendettas to obscure the truth.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani Leaders in London After Panama Leaks

Culture of Corruption in Pakistan

Zardari Corruption Probe

President Pervez Musharraf's Legacy

We Hang Petty Thieves and Appoint Great Ones to High Offices

Capitalism's Achilles Heel by Raymond Baker

[Riaz Haq]

#TransparencyInternational #UK Head : “Foreign politicians with convictions relating to corruption should not enjoy impunity in Britain. Nor should their unexplained wealth, stashed in luxury London properties, fall out of the reach of law enforcement" https://www.ft.com/content/bef9565a-59a4-4290-8b29-f3866db21a84



Mr Sharif “has been responsible for pillaging the state and I trust that you will be supportive of our efforts to bring those responsible for corruption to account”, Mr Khan’s adviser, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, wrote to Ms Patel on October 5.

After the Panama Papers revealed hidden assets belonging to Mr Sharif’s family, he resigned as prime minister in 2017. The following year a Pakistan court sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment for corruption. He has claimed that this and other corruption cases against him are politically motivated.


In November 2019 he flew to London after the Pakistan authorities granted him leave to travel abroad for eight weeks to seek treatment for various conditions. He sought an extension of his temporary release but the Pakistan authorities refused on the grounds that he had offered inadequate medical evidence and ordered Mr Sharif to return home.



According to records submitted to the Pakistan authorities, he has given as his London address the very flat on London’s opulent Park Lane that led to his downfall. His family’s ownership of the flat was exposed by the leak of secret files from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The letter to Ms Patel urges her to use her “extensive powers” to deport Mr Sharif, arguing she is “duty bound” to do so. It cites immigration rules that criminals sentenced to four years or more must be refused leave to remain in the UK. A Pakistan court has issued a warrant for Mr Sharif’s arrest, the letter adds.

A Pakistan official said the UK had not yet formally responded. The Home Office declined to comment.

“Foreign politicians with convictions relating to corruption should not enjoy impunity in Britain. Nor should their unexplained wealth, stashed in luxury London properties, fall out of the reach of law enforcement,” said Daniel Bruce, head of Transparency International UK.

“The UK government should work constructively with democratic countries such as Pakistan to uphold the rule of law. Action should also be taken to seize and return illicit assets held here in Britain in order to deliver justice for the victims of corruption. Failure to act on cases such as this, earns the UK an unwelcome reputation as a safe haven for dirty money.”

[Riaz Haq]

IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
UNDER THE CHARTERED INSITUTE OF ARBITRATION RULESBETWEEN:

Broadsheet LLC

- and -
(1) The Islamic Republic of Pakistan (2) The National Accountability Bureau

PART FINAL AWARD (Quantum)

Sir Anthony Evans 24 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London
WC2A 3EG

Date: Dec 17, 2018

Excerpts:

Stroz Friedberg was instructed to carry out a ‘forensic audit’ (or ‘inventory’) of the JIT Report. This consisted of identifying potentially recoverable assets of the Sharif Family that were referred to in it and ascribing a valuation to each. This resulted in a list of 76 items of property in three overseas jurisdictions, namely, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the United Kingdom, as well as in Pakistan, with total values that were corrected in the Revised SF Report to take account of Mr. Bezant’s comments on it. The revised total was US$820.8 million. The third instruction was “to apply the 20% rate due Broadsheet as outlined in the ARA” – a mechanical application of the 20% rate provided four in the ARA clause 4 – which resulted in a total ‘Loss of Revenue’ for Broadsheet of US$164.2 million. The fourth was to establish a ‘borrowing rate of interest’ for each of the 76 items of loss and to apply it from what they considered was the appropriate date. The interest calculation increased the total of ‘Broadsheet’s Entitlement’ to US$304.6 million.

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The 2017/8 proceedings, however, in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, including the JIT Investigation and Report, have produced a very different situation where (subject to pending appeals) there is an authoritative listing of personal and family assets totalling (as corrected) US$820 million, both in Pakistan and abroad, and where certain real property in the United Kingdom valued at US$13 million (“the Avenfield flats”) has been forfeited to the Pakistan State as having been acquired with corrupt assets. These call for separate consideration in this Award.

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As stated above, the total value of assets both in Pakistan and overseas listed by the JIT is agreed by the expert witnesses as US$820 million. Whilst accepting that this figure must be discounted to take account of many factors, not least the costs of recovery etc., Claimant’s representatives have put it forward as what might be called the gross amount of possible recoveries by NAB for the purpose of calculating Broadsheet’s potential entitlement to 20 per cent, under the ARA Clause 4.



https://www.scribd.com/document/491113980/UK-high-court-decision-in...

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan #Media Moguls in #PandoraPapers:

Jang Group's Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman

Dawn Media Group's Hameed Haroon

Express Media Group's Sultan Ahmed Lakhani

Pakistan Today's (late) Arif Nizami

Gourmet Group which owns GNN TV channel

#TaxEvasion #Corruption

https://www.dawn.com/news/1650077/revealed-list-of-all-pakistanis-n...

Politicians or politically exposed persons:
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and his family
Minister for Water Resources Moonis Elahi
Ex-federal minister and Senator Faisal Vawda
Son of PM’s former adviser for finance and revenue Waqar Masood Khan, Abdullah Masood Khan
Family of Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtiyar
PTI leader Abdul Aleem Khan
PPP’s Sharjeel Memon
PML-N’s Ishaq Dar’s son Ali Dar
PTI donor Arif Naqvi
PTI donor Tariq Shafi
Wife of PML-Q boss Chaudhry Pervez Elahi
Former FBR chairman and finance secretary Salman Siddiq’s son Yawar Salman
Army officers or their family members
Wife of retired Lt Gen Shafaat Ullah Shah
Raja Nadir Pervez, retired army officer and former minister
Retired Maj Gen Nusrat Naeem, former ISI director general of counterintelligence
Umar and Ahad Khattak, sons of former Pakistan Air Force chief Abbas Khattak
Retired Lt Gen Habibullah Khan Khattak's daughter Shahnaz Sajjad Ahmad (also the sister of retired Lt Gen Ali Kuli Khan and sister-in-law of former federal minister Gohar Ayub Khan)
Retired Lt Gen Muhammad Afzal Muzaffar’s son Muhammad Hasan Muzaffar
Retired Lt Gen Khalid Maqbool’s son-in-law Ahsan Latif
Retired Lt Gen Tanvir Tahir’s wife Zahra Tanvir
Business personalities
Axact CEO Shoaib Sheikh
National Bank of Pakistan President Arif Usmani
National Investment Trust Managing Director Adnan Afridi
Peshawar Zalmi owner and renowned industrialist Javed Afridi
Media moguls
Jang Group publisher Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman
Dawn Media Group CEO Hameed Haroon
Express Media Group publisher Sultan Ahmed Lakhani
Pakistan Today publisher (late) Arif Nizami
The Gourmet Group, which also owns the GNN TV channel
Header image: (From L-R) Senator Faisal Vawda, PPP leader Sharjeel Memon and Axact CEO Shoaib Sheikh are among the Pakistanis named in the Pandora Papers. — DawnNewsTV/Online/File

[Riaz Haq]

Pandora Papers and the economic impact of high-level corruption by Javed Hasan

https://www.arabnews.pk/node/1944396

While owning offshore companies or bank accounts per se does not automatically imply culpability, it is incumbent on all the named, especially those holding senior governmental positions, to provide evidence of transparent money trails and of the declaration of such assets with the tax authorities in Pakistan.

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Welcoming the release of the Pandora Papers, Prime Minister Imran Khan stated that it once again exposed “the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion & corruption & laundered out to financial ‘havens’… ”. He also highlighted that the UN Secretary General’s panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) estimates that as much as $7 trillion of stolen assets are parked in largely offshore tax havens. The Papers include names of politicians in high office as well as retired military officials, businessmen and media owners.

.... In a move that lives up to his crusade against corruption, Prime Minister Imran Khan set up a high-level cell under the Inspection Commission to investigate the matter with the objective of holding “everyone involved in the Pandora leaks accountable” and promised to make the investigation public. It would also be consistent with the PM’s earlier stance that those implicated in the leaks should not be in positions that can in any manner influence the investigation while it is being carried out.

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...It is also argued that Pakistan’s anti-corruption campaign is ineffective and used more as an instrument of political victimization than toward improving overall governance. While there is some validity in questioning the effectiveness and motives of the anti-corruption efforts, the ‘greasing the wheels’ reasoning, in toto, does not stand up to scrutiny.
In China it has been argued that corruption — euphemistically also called access money — has helped speed up economic growth. However, the renowned political scientist, Yuen Yuen Ang, who has extensively examined the matter, states in a recent article that corruption “spurred government officials to promote construction and investment aggressively, regardless of whether it was sustainable. Luxury properties that enriched colluding state and business elites have mushroomed across the country, while affordable housing remains in short supply…”. More ominously she points out that “Corruption, inequality and financial meltdowns can trigger social unrest and erode the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party...”.
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Corruption has distorted incentives and market forces, and acted as a tax on business that has raised production costs and reduced the profitability of investments. Even more perversely it has dissuaded international investors from considering Pakistan as an investment destination, thereby suppressing the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country. On the basis of a survey of 390 senior executives in 14 countries, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study reported that 45 percent of respondents refused to enter markets where corruption risks were perceived to be high.
Corruption’s corrosive influence on the overall governance and business environment as well as the extraction of resources into offshore accounts such as those disclosed in Pandora Papers has undermined Pakistan’s growth prospects and poverty alleviation efforts. It has denuded already scarce resources available for investment in health and education, thereby limiting human capital development and enhancement of its productive capabilities. It is therefore indisputable that all forms of corrupt practices, both direct and indirect, must be eliminated. While some of that will require structural change and take time, in the near-term international enforcement mechanisms must be mobilized to shut down avenues that facilitate illicit financial flows.