Pakistan News And Discussion-11

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Fraudistan Zindabad</span></b>[/center]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>NAB to hire experts to probe ‘biggest’ tax fraud</span></b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo--> [/center]

<b>ISLAMABAD : The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is in the process of acquiring expertise from official as well as private sources to scan records of Karachi Sales Tax offices which had recently been seized by its investigators after unearthing the tax history’s biggest fraud, say sources.</b>

The officials who have been handling these records have been listed, while the Customs Intelligence is reportedly assisting the NAB after filing four FIRs against most unlikely businessmen that could not be suspected of ever having money enough and connections required for undertaking businesses and frauds reported to have been committed by them.

“These are just frontmen,” said a senior official, adding that NAB’s experts might reach the actual culprits. Both the CBR and the Customs Intelligence Headquarters in Islamabad have already expressed unwillingness to affirm or otherwise on this issue.

One senior CBR official, however, said, “investigations are afoot and let us await the results. Three Karachi exporters, namely Sajjad Pardesi, Qadir Jhangra and Arif Sunyara are absconding after the NAB seized records of Sales Tax (East) Karachi, lodged FIRs and arrested some other culprits. Three senior Customs officials, seven assistants at the Collector’s office both at East and West Sales Tax, Karachi, face investigations for ‘alleged collusion’.

Initially, the estimates of defrauded export rebate and refunds on some 25 million metres of cloth and other items amounted to Rs2.2 billion, but these were just initial estimates, said a senior official at Karachi. He said the total fraud, when unearthed, might amount to Rs27 billion, which is so far the largest detection in tax history.

He indicated that this would again be only a part of the frauds committed and under investigation which might be in the vicinity of Rs250 billion, all perpetrated between 2002 and 2006. “They (NAB staff) are after the entire thing, and might come out with something far larger than anyone could ever suspect taking place in the tax offices. And this would be the story of only Karachi offices, while similar things have also taken place in the Punjab where exports rebate and refund frauds are being investigated by the CBR’s audit wing,” the official added.

<b>Director Audit CBR Sher Nawaz was engaged to help investigate these cases technically, and now the NAB officials are working on it to unearth “the tentacles of these people touching somewhere big and high.</b>

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->