ISLAMABAD: After putting it off for nearly two years, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has finally decided to tighten the noose around owners of offshore companies exposed in the Panama Papers.

At a meeting on Tuesday, NAB Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal ordered an immediate inquiry into the companies held by 435 Pakistanis in tax havens abroad.

The order came after the chairman took notice of the matter of offshore companies owned by Pakistani citizens in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.

The inquiry will proceed without “any fear or favour”, a NAB statement asserted.

The Panama Papers were a massive investigation into the secretive offshore companies owned by the global political and business elite. Reported by the International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ) in April 2016, the revelations in the leaked files of the Mossack Fonseca law firm led to several high-profile corruption investigations around the world.

Justice Javed Iqbal seeks details of over 400 offshore firms owned by Pakistani citizens

In Pakistan, a petition based on the leaks moved before the Supreme Court had led to the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister.

However, Justice Iqbal’s predecessor Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, whose four-year term ended two months ago, did not take any action against the over 400 Pakistani citizens named as owners of offshore firms in the leaks.

A Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) probe against the Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers did not make much headway, and the board said that it had not received many responses to the notices it had issued to these individuals.

NAB has now asked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and FBR to provide information about offshore companies owned by Pakistanis.

Last month, the Supreme Court also sent notices to NAB and the federal government, seeking reports on actions taken against the Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers.

It should be noted that setting up offshore companies is, in and of itself, not a criminal act and has many legitimate uses.

Critics have argued that these companies are established for tax evasion and demanded that action be taken against those who engage in money laundering.

According to NAB, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Aleem Khan and a former FBR chairman and his sons own offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands.

On Tuesday, the NAB chairman also took serious notice of the delay in finalising inquiries and investigations in cases of white-collar crimes, and directed all regional headquarters to follow NAB standard operating procedures (SOPs), which stipulate that the maximum time allowed for the preparation of a reference would be 10 months.

The meeting was informed that 500 inquiries and 287 investigations were still in progress and could not be completed in the 10-month period.

Currently, NAB is pursuing 1,138 corruption references in different accountability courts: 347 in Lahore, 275 in Karachi, 185 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 97 in Balochistan, 171 in Rawalpindi, 34 in Multan and 29 in Sukkur.

Justice Javed Iqbal directed the officials concerned to file applications in the relevant courts to seek swift disposal of these cases so that over Rs900 billion, which the bureau expects to recover, could be deposited in the national exchequer.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2017