Islamabad:
A Senate subcommittee on finance raised serious concerns on a corruption scandal of several billion rupees in the import of solar panels on Monday.
The Senate subcommittee on the permanence of finance asked how certain companies have managed to make transactions far exceeding the legally prescribed annual limit of 20 million rupees, certain companies dealing with transactions worth 2 billion rupees at 5 billion rupees in a single year.
The panel was informed that a total of 11 companies would have been involved in the mega scandal.
Chaired by Senator Mohsin Aziz, the subcommittee met to discuss the details of the scandal.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been strongly criticized for its inability to detect and prevent these suspicious transactions.
“How did some companies manage transactions worth billions?” Asked Senator Aziz.
He also surveyed how companies exceeded the annual transaction limits of 20 million rupees. “Where was the FBR when these suspicious transactions occurred?”
The Committee revealed that 11 companies were involved in the solar panel transactions of 160 billion rupees, two central players being a star commercial solution and a moon clear from Peshawar.
A private Islamic bank has revealed that the accounts of these companies had been opened in its Badami Bagh branch in Lahore. Bright Star’s account was opened on August 3, 2018 by Rab Nawaz and his wife, Zainab Nawaz, while Moonlight’s story was initiated by Zahid Akbar. Bright Star began to carry out business only three days after the opening of his account.
According to the bank’s representatives, Bright Star treated transactions worth 2.7 billion rupees in 2018, 5 billion rupees in 2019, 1.5 billion rupees in 2020, 3 billion rupees in 2021 and 2.5 billion rupees in 2022.
Senator Aziz stressed that if a transaction limit in a single day was 2 million rupees, these companies have treated several million in one day. “How was it possible?”
Bank officials replied that transactions exceeding 2 million rupees trigger a currency transaction report (CTR), which is then transmitted to the financial monitoring unit (FMU).
The FMU representatives explained that the reception of a CTR does not automatically indicate suspicions, but if a transaction seems doubtful, a suspicious transaction report (STR) is deposited and transmitted to application organizations for additional action .
Senator Aziz required clarity on the actions of application organizations against companies involved in the STRs, highlighting the need for more strict examination and responsibility.
It is relevant to note that earlier this month, the Post Clearance Audit (PCA) South discovered a massive program of RS106 billion money laundering linked to fraudulent imports of solar panels.
The investigation identified two brothers as the presumed brains behind the operation, which was based on a network of seven screens based in Peshawar and Lahore. Despite a declared financial value of only 119 million rupees, companies have turned billions by imports of over -exploited solar panels.
The results of the PCA revealed that the prices of solar panels were inflated up to 500%, with panels imported from $ 0.35 to $ 0.70 per Watt, far exceeding the original cost of 0.15 $ by watt in China. To hide the illicit funds, 42 billion rupees were deposited in cash in several commercial banks.
