The Panama leaks exposed hundreds of Pakistan’s most prominent businessmen, industrialists and politicians. While these people were hiding their money in offshore accounts, the people of Pakistan were suffering. All these assets are money belonging to the people of Pakistan.

According to ‘25 Million Broken Promises: The Crisis of Pakistan’s Out-of-School Children’ a report by Alif Ailaan, 25 million boys and girls between the age of five and 16 are currently not in school. In addition to that, children in the Thar desert area are dying on almost a daily basis and no one seems to care about them.

While the Panama leaks created strong waves all around the world, the impact remains slow. In the case of Pakistan, the least that the Supreme Court can do is to issue a decree that will stop all Pakistani Panama money holders and their relatives from participating in any public-related office as well as the next general election that will take place in 2018.

Imagine if the same amount of money was used to help different communities instead, then we might have been able to save children from dying due starvation, or at least give everyone access to pure drinking water and sanitation.

Perhaps the Panama leaks and other similar leaks were needed for the world to wake up and think about the closure of such offshore companies or at least restrict its people from being able transfer money without being held accountable. However, the greater responsibility lies on the shoulders of the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies to implement laws that will restrict people from such unlawful activities. Different world bodies or the UN should call for an assembly session to impose certain restrictions on flow of money from countries without paying taxes.

By implementing such a law, they would be supporting nations, especially those that are very poor to chain non-tax payers, corrupt politicians and industrialists from investing money outside their own country. It is about time that the UN thinks about implementing such policies in order to not only support its own member countries but the whole world. We must put an end to corruption and this is a great first step.

— The reader is a Pakistani development consultant based in Karachi, Pakistan