Soon after the international consortium of Investigative journalists unveiled Pandora Papers, Prime Minister Imran Khan has welcomed the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites, and said the government will investigate all citizens mentioned in the leaks.
Prime Minister took to Twitter to welcome the leaks. He made a series of tweets to give his stance on the issue.
PM’s tweet reads, “We welcome the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion & corruption & laundered out to financial "havens". The UN SG's Panel FACTI calculated a staggering $7 trillion in stolen assets parked in largely offshore tax havens.”
In another tweet, the PM said, “My govt will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers & if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action. I call on the international community to treat this grave injustice as similar to the climate change crisis.”
He said, “My over-two decades struggle has been premised on the belief that countries are not poor but corruption causes poverty because money is diverted from being invested in our people. Also, this resource-theft causes devaluation, leading to thousands of poverty-related deaths.”
“Just like the East India Company plundered the wealth of India, ruling elites of developing world are doing the same. Unfortunately, the rich states are neither interested in preventing this large-scale plunder nor in repatriating this looted money.”
“If unchecked, inequalities between rich & poor states will increase as poverty rises in the latter. This in turn will lead to a flood of economic migration from the poor to the rich states, causing further economic & social instability across the globe.”
It is to be mentioned here, Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen, PTI Senator Faisal Vawda, Ishaq Dar’s son, Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtiar, PTI leader Abdul Aleem Khan are among the 700 names the Pandora Papers exposed.
Some ex-servicemen and businessmen and media company owners have also been named in the leaks.