“FIA should have the same access to government records as NAB has,” he said, pointing out that amendments were required to the anti-money laundering law to ensure this. Shehzad noted that NAB had the authority to take records from any institution but if the FIA required records from a bank, they had to take permission from a sessions judge. He said that this could take up to months and sometimes the sessions judge denies FIA access to the records. The FIA official responded by explaining that their investigations could be sped up if records that took six months to acquire were acquired in six days. On the other hand, a benami account is one where the account holders’ transactions do not match their income.

Source: Pakistan Today April 09, 2019 17:08 UTC