ISLAMABAD: Leaked tax records of Pakistan's former Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa's family, reveal that all of them became billionaires during his tenure as the country's army chief.
According to a report in Asian Lite, the leaked tax records do not come as a surprise since corruption runs deep in the Pakistan Army. The recent revelations only reinforce the view of the rot within the Pakistan Army. The report says that even though Pakistan's Senior Generals and officers have been at the receiving end of state largesse in the form of fat salaries and other perks, they still act in a corrupt fashion that does not behove a military force.
The details of the Bajwa family's financial dealings were revealed by the Pakistani website FastFocus. The report included the dealings of Bajwa's wife Ayesha Amjad and daughter-in-law Mahnoor Sabir.
The report claimed that the Bajwa family members had acquired assets amounting to PKR 12.7 billion during Bajwa's term as Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff. The assets of his wife, Ayesha Amjad, went from zero in 2016 to PKR 2.2 billion (declared and known) in six years.
"From getting his sister-in-law Asma Bajwa the position of a highly paid human resource consultant for the national airline to helping his 70-year-old brother retain a cushy Pakistan International Airline (PIA) job in the UK, there is so much that Bajwa must answer for," according to a report in Asian Lite.
According to Asian Lite, one aspect of Pakistan's current situation is corruption within its Army. As Lord Acton once said, "Power corrupts and corrupts absolutely" that is the lesson learnt from the story of General Bajwa's family becoming wealthy overnight, the report said.
"Now that Bajwa's blue-eyed boy, Munir is appointed as Pakistan's army chief; it will be business as usual with no heads rolling for the rampant corruption plaguing the Pakistani army. Financial mishandling, corruption, and influence peddling by generals for personal gain have been the subject of several scandals in Pakistan," media reports have said.
At the beginning of this year, data leaked from Credit Suisse, an investment banking firm registered in Switzerland, revealed information about 600 accounts linked to 1,400 Pakistani citizens. Account-holders included several key politicians and generals, including the ex-ISI chief, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan.
"Expose like this coming out is nothing new. It has been well-known for a long. We also know the case of a Pakistani General who fled from Pakistan and opened a chain of pizza huts in the US. So it's nothing new," says, Defence Expert Lt Col JS Sodhi (Retd).
On 27 August 2016, an article titled 'Lust for Land' was published in the Pakistani newspaper 'Dawn' that exposed the reality of multiplying defence societies and the Pakistani Army's insatiable hunger for land.
Several other reports from Pakistan have claimed that the Pakistani Army is using government land to fulfil commercial interests. (ANI)
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