International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has taken the world by a storm yet again by leaking fresh information about offshore companies in the Bahamas.
This creates, for the first time, a free, online and publicly-searchable database of offshore companies set up in the island nation that has sometimes been called “The Switzerland of the West.”
“We see it as a service to the public to make this basic kind of information openly available,” said Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ.
“There is much evidence to suggest that where you have secrecy in the offshore world you have the potential for wrongdoing. So let’s eliminate the secrecy.”
The cache of documents from the island nation’s corporate registry provides names of directors and some owners of more than 175,000 Bahamian companies, trusts and foundations registered between 1990 and early 2016.
Over 150 Pakistanis have been identified as directors of nearly 70 companies from the total 175,000 companies incorporated in the Bahamas between 1959 and 2016.
According to media reports, among those named in the Bahamas documents include Jibran Khan, the son of Mohammad Naseer Khan, a former health minister of Pervez Musharraf government; former Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmed; Mohsin Abu BakarSheikhani, a tycoon of the construction industry; and TehminaDurrani’s mother SaminaDurrani.
ObaidAltafKhanani, son of money-changer AltafKhanani also reportedly owns offshore companies in the Bahamas.
The Bahamas is a constellation of 700 islands, much smaller than a square mile. It is one of a handful of micronations south of the United States whose confidentiality laws and reluctance to share information with foreign governments gave rise to the term “Caribbean curtain.”
The leaked Bahamian files reveal details of the offshore activities of prime ministers, ministers, princes and convicted felons.
According to income tax laws, the FBR can open cases of tax evasion by a filer for a period of up to five years while in the case of a non-filer, the maximum threshold is 10 years.
In April, the ICIJ had leaked documents of Panama law firm, Mosack Fonseca, of companies registered in tax havens. The cache named over 600 Pakistanis. Of them, the FBR had identified 444 persons so far. Among them, 150 persons owned over 600 companies in Pakistan, tax authorities have yet to take any meaningful action against them.
Courtesy: Pakistan Today
