Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg

21 Hussain Nawaz Sharif 3,285,6813 786,568
22 Mian Mahboon Elahi 3,227,0122 1,054,541
23 Mohammad Ilyas 3,189,3547 1,005,158
Source: 1993 Wealth Tax Directory
Sehr Saigol w/o Nasim Saigol declared her worth at Rs 188,51,382 while
Shamim Farooq Saigol declared her assets at Rs 5,27,766 with Zero liability.
Names of top industrialists like Nasim Saigol, Mian Mansha, Tariq Saeed Saigol,
Rafiq Saigol, Rafiq Habib and members of Bawany and Dawood families did not
appear in the tax directory at all or taxes paid by them was negligible.
" If my company announces a dividend, I will not draw my dividend and it will go
to the reserve of the company and is reinvested. This reduces my tax liability",
was implausible reply by Nasim Saigol when I asked him, as to how his name or
others like him does not appear any where among the top tax payers.
Pakistan's Nameless, Faceless Billionaires
In April 1992, while I was traveling in interior Sindh to cover the kidnapping of
three Japanese Students, I came accross a simple roadside hotel-owner at
Gothki, on the confluence of Sindh and Punjab province. It was to indulge in
small talk that I asked him who was the biggest landowner of the area. His
answer shocked me.
" The biggest landowner of this area is also Pakistan's biggest
landowner. So Mr Pressman, please tell me who is biggest
landowner of Pakistan?" he responded by counter questioning me.
An unassuming man and the member of national assembly from Sukkur, Ghulam
Mohammad Mehr who died in August 1995 owned 100,000 acres of agricultural
land and was Pakistan's biggest landlowner. This was confirmed to me by none
else but his grandson.
From Gothki, a small road branches off to the native town of Ghulam Mohammad
Mehr, Known as Khan Pur Sharif. His grandson, on vacation from studies from
Europe confirmed what my guide had told me.
" My guide had told me that the land from Grand Trunk Road to Khan Pur Sharif
belongs to your family?" I asked him
" And from here to Indian border also" came the prompt reply.
A former bureaucrat, Tasneem Ahmad, in an article, The dynamics of
bureaucrats, in the daily Dawn of November 22, 1994 observed that " the domain
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