LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) voted in favour of using Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), and right to overseas Pakistanis in yesterday’s crucial joint session of the parliament on the condition of saving Federal Minister for Water Resources Moonis Elahi in Pandora papers probe.

Bol News has also learnt that PML-Q had also decided to give more time to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the centre and Punjab despite pressure from party numbers to leave the government as an ally.

Moonis is the son of the veteran politician and PML-Q Punjab President and Speaker Punjab Assembly (PA) Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and has been among the 700 people named in the Pandora papers with alleged links to offshore companies. Moonis landed in hot waters after Prime Minister Imran Khan set up a “high-level cell,” with officials from National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to investigate the Pakistanis named in the leaks.

“Appropriate action would be taken if any wrongdoing is established,” the premier had said while announcing that he would interrogate everyone on the list, including those in his immediate constituency.

Earlier in October, ICIJ – a Washington, D.C.-based network of reporters and media organizations – had leaked documents with names of 35 current and former national leaders and more than 330 politicians and officials in 91 countries and regions with secret stores of wealth.

Besides Moonis, PTI leaders Shaukat Tarin, Faisal Vawda, Abdul Aleem Khan and Khusro Bakhtiar were names in the leaks. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ishaq Dar’s son, Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Sharjeel Memon, National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) President Arif Usmani, PM’s Ambassador at large for Foreign Investment Ali Jahangir Siddiqui and National Investment Trust’s (NIT) MD Adnan Afridi were also named in the leaks.

According to sources privy to this development, “The special cell working under the supervision of Ahmad Yar Hiraj has completed their work and gathered enough evidence which it will reveal in a press conference soon.”

“In order to save the skin of its leader (Moonis), the PML-Q leadership which was previously giving cold-shoulder to the premier and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar went on the backfoot as they want a favour for Moonis,” sources confirmed to Bol News.

According to sources, “The Pandora Papers leaks probe cost a lot to the government. His (PM’s) government is based on a fragile political alliance that includes some smaller political parties, including the PML-Q, and its key leader Moonis. Things can get difficult here,” claimed sources.

Moonis Elahi denies having offshore companies

On October 5, while denying the allegations of having an offshore company, Moonis in his tweet had stated that “I do not own any offshore company nor do I have any assets which have not been declared. I refute all assertions to the contrary.”

Although the federal minister had denied having offshore companies time and again, the secret files which Bol News have seen and as also reported by BBC Urdu tell a different story.

The ICIJ found 12 million leaked documents and had given the BBC special permission to publish documents related to Moonis.

According to sources, Moonis denied owning an offshore company but interestingly, he did not confirm that he never had one in the past.

First document: An offshore memo

The first document which was released by BBC Urdu dated January 7, 2016, showed a memo from Moonis meeting with a Singapore-based wealth management firm about his desire to establish an offshore trust. The leaked memo gave an impression that Moonis allegedly wanted to set up a secret offshore trust called “Winthrop” with $33 million from land sales in Pakistan.

The plan for Winthrop was to buy a 24 per cent stake in Rahim Yar Khan Sugar Mills, about which Moonis had told the wealth management company that he had the very stake in the company through a proxy, said document and added that the net worth of Moonis was approximately $20million of which $6million was in Pakistan at that time.

Second document: File note of Moonis telephonic conversation

The second document is another memo about an August 29, 2017, phone call between a wealth management company official and Moonis.

Significantly, the second document claimed that Moonis wanted to close two offshore accounts created by the wealth management company, Winthrop and Green Hills.

The reason mentioned in the document is that “Moonis is concerned about the requirements of CRS reporting to inform the Government of Pakistan about these assets.”

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an agreement of which Pakistan is a party. It aims to prevent non-payment of cross-border taxes and to ensure compliance with international tax laws. The document further stated that instead of transferring the funds to his offshore companies after receiving legal advice, he set up an institution in the UK, where his wife and children live and apparently had nothing to do with him.

The documents further stated that both offshore accounts— Winthrop and Green Hills— were closed and Moonis was presented with a $7,000 bill from a Singapore-based wealth management company, which was soon paid by a company called LO89 Ltd. More mention of this company will follow.

Third document: London apartment

The document shows that LO89 bought Riverview Key, a beautiful apartment block on the banks of the River Thames in London, worth several million pounds in 2015. LO89 is the same company that paid the offshore bill of Moonis.

Fourth document: £5.4 million worth apartment in London for free?

According to released documents on June 23, 2017, the house on the River Thames was transferred to another company, JSR Ltd.

BBC Urdu reported that in it, their focus was on the column of the document where the value should be listed in exchange for which it was transferred and it stated, “The transfer was not made in exchange for money or anything that could have a value.”

It is worth mentioning here that another document from the Land Registry shows that the leasehold value of this apartment in 2015 was about £5.4 million. The apartment is now estimated to cost around ً£8 million.

Fifth document: property in the name of his wife

What makes these exclusive documents released by BBC on special permission from ICIJ important is that a company called JSR 81 Ltd, which acquired this London apartment worth more than £5 million without any payment the owner of this company is the wife of Monis, Tahreem Elahi.

This document shows that Tahreem was the owner of this property in the year 2018. She has owned 75% of the company since March 2017, according to Companies House records in the UK. But 75% of the shares are according to the UK’s PSC (key controlling persons) register, but according to the company’s incorporation documents, the company’s initial ‘subscribers’ (owners) were the same in 2017.

Sixth document: details of assets and liabilities

The information contained in this document becomes important when it is read in conjunction with some other documents entitled ‘Details of Assets and Liabilities’ which was signed in June 2018 and it was written that this is true June 30, 2017.

The details of the assets, as of June 30, 2017, do not mention the shares of Rahim Yar Khan Sugar Mills which Moonis had told Wealth Management Company that they were owned by him through a proxy and not that of London Property owned by a company owned by his wife. When Bol News tried contacting Moonis for his comment on these leaked papers from ICIJ he could not be reached.

The results of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s committee’s investigation are yet to come.

When news of Pandora papers surfaced in October the spokesperson of the Elahi Family had refuted all the allegations and had said, “In the past, due to political revenge against the family, misleading data and interpretations have been maliciously incorporated into files under the so-called accountability.”