In policy statements before both the houses of the parliament, the Finance Minister Ishaque Dar has revealed that Switzerland has agreed to revise the terms of a 2005 treaty which will allow both countries to shore up information-sharing mechanisms that will help detect the tax-evaders who have stashed their ill-gotten wealth in the Swiss banks.
This news when taken into account alongwith the already-known facts regarding the Pakistan-related 80 to 200 billion dollars hidden in the Swiss banks can’t but be regarded as heart-warming. Even if the figure of the hidden Swiss billions is placed at 80 instead of 200, and if Pakistan can manage to lay its hands on these billions, it will mean that we have got rid of the entire foreign debt in one go. Ishaque Dar says that the new accord will become effective a year from now. Meaning thereby that at the election time in 2018 Mian Nawaz Sharif’s government will be presiding over a would-be prosperous Pakistan.
But alas, credibility is the name of the game. We still remember how we as a nation failed to recover our own $ 600 million from a Swiss bank in 2008. All that was required was a willingness on the part of the PPP government at that time to bring back that money. A prompt letter from the-then prime minister would have been enough. But Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani chose to lose his high office rather than to displease his party boss.
Who knows, how our government will behave in 2018 if Mian Nawaz Sharif is still Prime Minister by then, and Ishaque Dar still Finance Minister?
Both of them are marred by the allegations of money-laundering on a monumental scale—
Even a simpleton can promptly conclude that behind this heart-warming news, the real objective is to do some damage-control in the aftermath of the Panama Papers uproar and in anticipation of the Supreme Court judgment expected to be announced any day from now.
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