ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has asked Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to disclose his sources of income and details of his assets.

Umer Cheema, a spokesman for PTI chief Imran Khan, confirmed on Saturday that a letter written by Mr Dar to Mr Khan had been received, which he said had endorsed his party’s stance that the minister had indeed transferred $4 million to his sons in Dubai.

Mr Cheema said Mr Dar should now reveal the sources through which he had earned the amount. He also asked the minister to explain why the government had failed to bring back to the country “the ill-gotten money belonging to the nation” from foreign banks.

Mr Dar had in the past submitted to a court an affidavit confessing his involvement in money laundering, Mr Cheema added.

His statement came a day after Mr Dar wrote to Mr Khan, criticising the PTI chairman’s claim that the minister had sent $4m to his sons in Dubai “to avoid taxes in Pakistan and was dragging his feet on signing Tax Avoidance Treaty with the Swiss authorities to bring back the ill-gotten money to Pakistan”.

In his letter, the finance minister wrote: “I must say your statement is totally fallacious, highly preposterous, nothing but a figment of your imagination and prima facie tainted with mala fide.”

Mr Dar said he had not transferred a single rupee from Pakistan to his sons in Dubai. On the contrary, he had till date received around $4m from his sons in Dubai.

Elaborating on his point, Mr Dar said he had “gifted” certain amount to his sons from his lawful earnings abroad. His sons were independent, adults and had started their professional careers in Dubai.

“I had also given them around $4m as loan which has since been fully repaid by them through proper banking channel, meaning that the amount has reached Pakistan, adding to the forex reserves of the country,” the minister said.

The finance minister asked to explain why the government has failed in bringing back ‘the ill-gotten money belonging to the nation’ from foreign banks

Being a family transaction, “having no nexus with his tax implication in Pakistan or Dubai, it was unfortunate that it had been dragged in public domain to raise unsubstantiated allegations against him”, Mr Dar said.

He said he regularly paid his taxes. Being a member of parliament, he had been regularly depositing his returns with the tax authorities and details of all his assets had regularly been reported in his annual returns of statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

“Your statement therefore is not only false and fabricated but also has no nexus whatsoever with verifiable facts and public record.”

In his letter, Mr Dar said the present government was committed to gaining access to information from Switzerland about detail of deposits of Pakistanis in its banks.

“The government of Pakistan has a Tax Treaty with Switzerland and as per Article 25 of the said Treaty information may be obtained from its government on case to case basis. However, Switzerland is not bound to provide information which is in possession of their banks and financial institutions covered under their bank secrecy laws,” the letter said.

He said he would welcome any suggestion and assistance from Mr Khan and his party to facilitate and expedite the legal processes to retrieve the ill-gotten money, from any foreign bank, which actually belonged to the people of Pakistan.

Feeling the need for developing instruments for gaining better access to information, the FBR on October 11, 2012 requested the-then finance minister for approval to renegotiate the existing tax treaty. However, the required approval was not granted, Mr Dar said.

“On assumption of office by me as finance minister, I restarted the process, obtained cabinet approval and the formalities for renegotiating the treaty were completed. Thereafter, negotiations were started by the FBR to revise the existing treaty in August 2014.

“The first round of negotiations has been completed and currently FBR’s request for 2nd round is pending with Swiss authorities. As and when our proposed amendments are agreed to by the two countries, Switzerland will be obliged to provide information about banks and financial institutions irrespective of the banks’ secrecy laws on a case to case basis,” he added.

Published in Dawn February 22nd , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play