Dubai: While cash-strapped Pakistan struggles to recover from high inflation and a crippling debt crisis, a recent report has revealed that rich Pakistani nationals own up to 22,000 properties worth $12.5 billion in the global financial hub, citing leaked data used by an international consortium of journalists used to access details of properties in Dubai. The data was obtained by the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies (C4ADS), a US-based non-profit organisation, that researches international crime and conflict.
The data was shared with Norwegian financial outlet E24 and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which coordinated an investigative project with media outlets from around the world. Titled ‘Dubai Unlocked’, the collaboration includes 74 partners from 58 countries. It includes details of "an astounding volume of leaked property data that includes over 17,000 properties listed as belonging to Pakistani nationals up to the spring of 2022" known to journalists.
More than a dozen retired military officials and their families, as well as bankers, politicians and bureaucrats, are among the 22,000 listed owners from Pakistan who own properties in upscale Dubai areas, reported Geo News. While 17,000 Pakistani citizens are listed owners in the 2022 leak, academics using the data and additional sources put the actual number of Pakistani owners of residential property in Dubai at 22,000.
High-profile names in Dubai leaks
Several prominent names have surfaced in the 'Dubai Unlocked' report. The most prominent among retired military generals is the name of late former dictator Pervez Musharraf, who owns three properties in the areas of Dubai Marina, Burj Khalifa and Al Thanyah Fifth, along with his wife. Musharraf’s former military secretary Lt-Gen Shafaat Ullah Shah is also included in the leaked data, which covers the period 2020-2022.
Also among the Pakistanis listed in the report are President Asif Ali Zardari’s three children, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s wife, Sharjeel Memon and family members, Senator Faisal Vawda, Farah Gogi, Sher Afzal Marwat, four MNAs and half a dozen MPAs from the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies.
Asif Ali Zardari received a foreign property as a gift in 2014 and he had gifted it to someone else by the time it was declared. The list also includes former prime minister Shaukat Aziz as well as a police chief, an ambassador and a scientist – all of whom owned properties either directly or through their spouses and children.
Zardari's three children are joint owners of two apartments, one in Al Saffa and another in Jumeirah. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has declared these two properties in his statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the ECP, Dawn reported. Hussain Nawaz, son of former premier and PML-N president Nawaz Sharif appears as a listed owner in the leaks.
What does the report mean for listed owners?
The report estimates that the apartments and villas may have been worth more than $10 billion at the start of 2022, but with the more than 25 per cent increase in property prices over the last two years, the real worth of Pakistanis’ residential properties in Dubai could now be well above $12.5 billion. Pakistani residents (those in the country for more than 183 days per year) with assets abroad have to value them at the current exchange rate and pay a one per cent tax on that if the value of the asset is more than Rs 100 million.
However, a mere mention of someone in the data is not evidence in itself of financial crime or tax fraud. Nor does the data contain information such as residence status, sources of income, tax declarations of rental income or capital gains. In fact, several of those approached for comment on their properties said they were declared to the tax authorities. The glamorous Dubai has a darker reputation as a tax haven, and top destination for murky sources of cash and money laundering — often through real estate transactions.
However, the report does paint an astonishing picture of contrasts. Pakistan, a developing country teetering on the edge of economic collapse, begging international lenders and friendly countries for lifelines in single-digit billions, features prominently in the data, according to Dawn. The report comes as Pakistan is looking for another bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
'Nothing illegal, assets declared': Pak politicians react
In the wake of the report, some Pakistani politicians downplayed the revelations, claiming that there was nothing wrong with the practice and that properties under their name were already declared. The PPP said there was “nothing new or illegal” in the information since its chairman’s assets were already publicly declared — a sentiment echoed by other politicians as well.
"All the national and international assets of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Bibi Aseefa Bhutto-Zardaru have already been declared in the Election Commission of Pakistan and with the FBR," said Bilawal's spokesperson Zulfikar Ali Bader. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Naqvi also said that the Dubai property listed in his wife's name was “fully declared and listed in tax returns”.
PTI leader Sher Afzal Marwat acknowledged that he owned an apartment in Dubai, adding that it was declared with all regulatory authorities such as the FBR and ECP for the past six years. “It can be confirmed both with the FBR as well as ECP,” he said.
(with inputs from PTI)
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