Dar takes notice of ‘illegal, unwarranted’ leak of COAS Bajwa’s family’s tax records

By Muhammad JuniadPublished On 06 Jan 2023

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday took notice of the “illegal and unwarranted” leak of the tax records of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s family members.

“This is clearly violative of the complete confidentiality of tax information that the law provides,” a statement issued by the finance ministry stated, a day after a report by investigative news website FactFocus, which allegedly cited tax returns and wealth statements, claimed that the COAS’ family had amassed billions of rupees in the last six years.

“In view of this serious lapse on the part of to-date unknown functionaries, the finance minister has directed the special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) on Revenue Tariq Mehmood Pasha to personally lead an immediate investigation into the violation of tax law[s] and breach of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) data, affix responsibility and submit a report within 24 hours,” the handout said.

FactFocus describes itself as a “Pakistan-based digital media news organization working on data-based investigative news stories”.

The website has previously published in-depth stories on the “misappropriation of funds” by a number of politicians and other powerful sectors in Pakistan, including PTI chairman Imran Khan and former dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

In 2020, the publication released a report regarding the alleged offshore properties and businesses of former China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority chairman Lt-Gen retired Asim Saleem Bajwa and his family.

Last year, the website claimed to have obtained audio of former chief justice Saqib Nisar giving orders to convict former premier Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz.

According to the FactFocus report regarding the alleged tax records of COAS Bajwa’s family, the current market value of the known assets and business of the army chief, both within and outside Pakistan, amounted to Rs12.7 billion.

The report also shared the alleged wealth statements of Gen Bajwa and his family from 2013 to 2021.

It claimed that the assets of Gen Bajwa’s wife, Ayesha Amjad, went from zero in 2016 to Rs2.2 billion (declared and known) in six years. The report stated the amount didn’t include residential plots, commercial plots, and houses given by the army to her husband.

The report also alleged that the total worth of the declared assets of Mahnoor Sabir — Gen Bajwa’s daughter-in-law — was zero in the last week of October 2018. “It jumped to more than one billion (Rs1,271 million) just one week before her marriage on November 2, 2018.”

The website claimed that the assets of Mahnoor’s sister Hamna Naseer went from zero in 2016 to “billions” by 2017. It further alleged that the tax returns of a minor, the youngest of Mahnoor’s three sisters, were first submitted in 2018 when she was eight years old. “Her 2017 returns show that she received five properties as a ‘gift’,” the report said.

The report further alleged that the tax returns of Sabir Hameed — the army chief’s friend and his son’s father-in-law — were less than one million in 2013. However, “in the coming years, he became a billionaire, a powerful business tycoon of Lahore, and started transferring assets abroad,” the report claimed.

According to the publication, it was unable to obtain data about assets in the name of Gen Bajwa’s two sons.