Pandora Papers: 'No offshore company owned by PM Imran Khan'

ISLAMABAD: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has confirmed that Prime Minister Imran Khan was not owning any offshore company, Senator Faisal Javed said on Sunday after the unveiling of Pandora Papers.

Senator Faisal Javed said in a Twitter message that some people tried to link PM Imran Khan’s name with the offshore companies. He said that ICIJ confirmed that Imran Khan was not owning any offshore company.

He added that the premier made it very clear that each Pakistani will be investigated who was named in the Pandora Papers. The senator said that action will be taken against those involved in any illegal move.

کچھ لوگوں نے کافی کوشش کی اور وزیراعظم عمران خان کا نام آف شور کمپنیز سے جوڑنا چاہا-مگر ایک بار پھر عمران خان سرخرو رہے-ICIJ نے تصدیق کردی کہ عمران خان کی کوئی آف شور کمپنی نہیں ہے-وزیراعظم نے یہ بھی واضح کردیاکہ کوئی بھی پاکستانی ہو تحقیق ہوگی غیر قانونی عمل ہوا توکارروائی ہوگی pic.twitter.com/xPadt54l2A

— Faisal Javed Khan (@FaisalJavedKhan) October 3, 2021

READ: PM ANNOUNCES PROBE AGAINST ALL PAKISTANIS NAMED IN PANDORA PAPERS

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has unveiled “Pandora Papers” which includes the names of more than 700 Pakistanis.

According to the report, leaked documents revealed that key politicians including federal cabinet members, opposition party leaders, “have secretly owned an array of companies”.

PM Imran Khan welcomed the release of the Pandora Papers leak saying that it exposed the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion and corruption and laundered out to financial “havens”.

In a series of messages on Twitter, the prime minister said that his over two decades of struggle has been premised on the belief that countries are not poor but corruption causes poverty because money is diverted from being invested in our people.

READ: MORE THAN 700 PAKISTANIS NAMED IN PANDORA PAPERS LEAK

Also, he said that this resource-theft causes devaluation, leading to thousands of poverty-related deaths.

“Just like the East India Company plundered the wealth of India, ruling elites of developing world are doing the same. Unfortunately, the rich states are neither interested in preventing this large-scale plunder nor in repatriating this looted money.”

Imran Khan further shared that the United Nation’s SG’s Panel FACTI calculated a staggering US$7 trillion in stolen assets parked in largely offshore tax havens.

We welcome the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion & corruption & laundered out to financial “havens”. The UN SG’s Panel FACTI calculated a staggering $7 trillion in stolen assets parked in largely offshore tax havens.

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 3, 2021

“My government will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers and if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action,” he said.

READ: CHAUDHRY HOPES PANDORA LEAKS WOULD DISCOURAGE CORRUPTION ‘TRANSPARENTLY’

The prime minister also called on the international community to treat this grave injustice as similar to the climate change crisis.

“If unchecked, inequalities between rich and poor states will increase as poverty rises in the latter,” he said adding that this, in turn, will lead to a flood of economic migration from the poor to the rich states, causing further economic and social instability across the globe.