Less than two weeks before Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's tenure is about to end, a damaging report has shed light on the sharp rise of wealth of close family members of the most powerful person in the country in a span of six years.
Writing for Fact Focus, Pakistani journalist Ahmad Noorani has unearthed how Bajwa's immediate and extended family members, in a matter of few years, started a new business, became owners of farmhouses in prominent Pakistani cities and bought foreign properties, making billions of dollars in the process.
The investigative report by Fact Focus is supported by a lot of data that looks into the financial dealing of Bajwa's family, including his wife Ayesha Amjad, his daughter-in-law Mahnoor Sabir and other close family members.
"Within six years, both families become billionaires, started an international business, purchased multiple foreign properties, started transferring capital abroad, become owners of commercial plazas, commercial plots, huge farmhouses in Islamabad and Karachi, an immense real estate portfolio in Lahore, and so on. The current market value of the -- known -- assets and businesses within Pakistan and outside accumulated by the Bajwa family during the last six years is more than Rs 12.7 billion," Noorani wrote.
Based on tax returns and other financial statements, the Pakistani journalist noted how between 2013 and 2017, Bajwa revised the wealth statement for 2013 three times, after being appointed country's Army Chief.
"In the revised wealth statement for the year 2013, General Bajwa added a commercial plot in phase VIII of DHA Lahore. He claimed that in fact he had purchased this plot back in 2013 but forgot to declare. He would continue to forget for the next four years and could only remember his omissions in 2017, one year after becoming the Army Chief," he wrote in Fact Focus.
Back in 2016, Ayesha Amjad declared eight "Any Other Assets", without giving much detail. However, this was revised on April 17, 2018, when Bajwa became the Army Chief. She declared that the net value of her assets during the previous financial year, 2015, was zero.
But within six years, after dubious dealing of residential and commercial plots, her wealth went from zero in 2016 to Rs 2.2 billion -- "not including residential plots, commercial plots, and houses given by the army to her husband." The change in fortune of Bajwa's daughter-in-law Mahnoor Sabir is equally amazing.
"The total worth of a young woman's declared assets was zero in the last week of October 2018, it jumped to more than one billion (Rs 1271 million) just one week before her marriage on November 02, 2018," Ahmad Noorani wrote.
Though Mahnoor Sabir declared these properties to the FBR in 2018, the filing retrospectively stated that these properties were acquired in the tax years 2014, 2015, and 2016, the report added.
This report on Bajwa comes on Sunday, a day before the process for the appointment of a new Army Chief is likely to start. The content of Fact Focus is so damaging that the website of the publication is reportedly being blocked in Pakistan.
"FactFocus website being blocked in Pakistan. We will fight censorship. Please use VPN. Free VPNs available in appstores. Or use the one you use to watch "those" sites," the publication tweeted on Sunday.
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 had 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 had 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 ) jumped from zero in last week of October 2018 to Rs1,271 million on Nov 2, 2018, while the assets of Mahnoor’s sister Hamna Naseer went from zero in 2016 to “billions” by 2017. Furthermore, the tax returns of Sabir Hameed — the army chief’s son’s father-in-law — were less than a million in 2013 but “in the coming years, he became a billionaire”, the website claimed.
According to the publication, it was unable to obtain data about assets in the name of Gen Bajwa’s two sons.
FactFocus has claimed that after the publication of the story, the traffic on its site was “disrupted” while also claiming that the website had been “banned”.
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 Revnue (FBR) data, affix responsibility and submit a report within 24 hours,” the handout said.
