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ISLAMABAD: The opposition on Friday released a list of seven points of disclosure for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ahead of his planned attendance in the National Assembly this Friday.
The questionnaire was prepared in a meeting of opposition parties chaired by senior PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan in Parliament House. Members of Jamat-i-Islami, MQM, PTI, and PPP also attended the meeting.
The questionnaire asks the Prime Minister to clarify when and how four apartments in Mayfair, London were purchased and the source of taxable income used to purchase them, to name property held by the PM and his family between 1985 and 2016 and the source of taxable income available to the PM and his family during that period.
The questionnaire also asks the PM to confirm which of the four, seemingly contradictory, claims to explain the ownership and purchase of the Mayfair flats is correct.
The terms of disclosure follow the PM's announcement he will attend Friday's session of the Parliamentt to answer the opposition's queries regarding the Panama Papers.
Formally withdrawing their demand for the prime minister’s resignation, opposition parties last week finally agreed on a draft of the terms of reference (ToRs) for the judicial commission to investigate the allegations thrown up by the Panama Papers leaks.
Opposition parties want the formation of a three-member judicial commission — headed by the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) — through an act of parliament. The commission, they say, should first hold an inquiry against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and members of his family and will be given three months, extendable to four, to complete the task.
Only then, according to the opposition-drafted ToRs, can it start proceedings against other Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers and will have a year to complete this task.
Earlier, the government rejected the draft of the terms of reference (ToR) for an inquiry commission on the Panama Papers allegations.
The government indicated that it was willing to sit with the opposition to come up with terms of reference that were focused on eliminating corruption and did not target the prime minister personally.
What the Panama Papers reveal about Sharif family
The data from the Panama Papers, available on the website of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — one of around 100 news organisations and 300 journalists that worked on mining the data simultaneously — also reveals the offshore holdings of members of Prime Minister Sharif’s family.
Maryam is described as “the owner of British Virgin Islands-based firms Nielsen Enterprises Limited and Nescoll Limited, incorporated in 1994 and 1993”.
On one of the documents released by ICIJ, the address listed for Nielsen Enterprises is Saroor Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The document, dated June 2012, describes Maryam Nawaz as the ‘beneficial owner’.
According to ICIJ, “Hussain and Maryam signed a document dated June 2007 that was part of a series of transactions in which Deutsche Bank Geneva lent up to $13.8 million to Nescoll, Nielsen and another company, with their London properties as collateral.”
In July 2014, the two companies were transferred to another agent.
Hasan Nawaz Sharif is described as “the sole director of Hangon Property Holdings Limited incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in February 2007, which acquired Liberia-based firm Cascon Holdings Establishment Limited for about $11.2 million in August 2007”.
