Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif furthered his industrial units from one to 30 during his political career as Punjab finance minister to become the prime minister for the third time, Online news agency claimed in a report on Thursday.
In his address to the nation, the prime minister talked about the industrial empire owned by the Sharif family and payment of taxes worth millions of rupees but documents, in possession of Online, contradict the claim as he and his family have shown negligible income and value of assets while paying taxes which was is in few thousand rupees.
According to the Online documents, the Sharif family showed its income about Rs 7,623 in 1970-71, and assets worth Rs 7,194 and paid zero tax.
As per the prime minister, when he reacquired Ittefaq Foundry in 1979 it was almost bankrupt while official documents show that when Gen (r) Ziaul Haq returned the Ittefaq Foundary to the Sharif family in June 1979, loans of about Rs 83.4 million against the group were written-off by the military regime.
According to Nawaz, in 1989 the PPP government did not allow Jonathan ship to offload their imported goods for one year and the Ittefaq Foundry had to face a financial loss of Rs 500 million. However, the Sharif family showed a total income of Rs 938,311 and total assets of Rs 242,915 in 1988-89.
According to the documents, in 1992-93 total income of Rs 43,727 and assets worth Rs 311,573 were declared by the Sharif family while they paid only Rs 6,170 in income tax.
Similarly, in the year 1993-94, Sharif family declared its total income at Rs 282,504 and value of assets at Rs 181,491 while only Rs 10,422 was paid in tax by the family.
In mid 90s about four luxury flats were purchased by the Sharif family in Avenfield House Park London through offshore companies namely Nelson and Nescol, the documents reveal.
According to official record of 1984-85, when Nawaz was provincial finance minister, he had one industrial unit and in 1985, when he became Punjab chief minister, the number of industrial units jumped to nine. In 1991-93, when he became the prime minister for the first time, these industrial units jumped from nine to 30.
Nawaz allegedly used political powers to “steal Pakistani resources” and Ittefaq Industries grew from one foundry to 30 businesses producing steel, sugar, paper and textiles with combined revenue of $4,000 million, according to documents which quote a book titled “Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System”.