Wealth verification: Politicians oppose scrutiny of assets by auditors

Political parties collectively oppose proposal of ECP to scrutinise parliamentarians’ assets by FBR and AGP.

ISLAMABAD: Political parties have collectively opposed a proposal floated by the Election Commission to scrutinise parliamentarians’ assets by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Auditor-General of Pakistan (AGP).

The proposal was put forward by the Election Commission when representatives of all political parties gathered at a consultative meeting organised by the commission in connection with reforming the country’s electoral system.

Sources privy to the meeting told The Express Tribune that top bosses of the commission said that it was planning to verify assets declared by parliamentarians from FBR and the audit authorities.

The idea, sources quoted the commission’s bosses as saying, was that asset declarations submitted by parliamentarians should be properly scrutinised.

However, sources said leaders of major political parties, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) shot down the proposal.

They were of the view that by engaging the FBR and the auditor-general for verifying parliamentarians’ assets, the move will not only be interpreted as interference into the affairs of the Election Commission, but could also be used as a tool to harass them.

“We believe that the proposal, if materialised, can be used as a tool to exploit politicians,” a political party member said. He added that there was no disagreement on scrutinising assets, but political parties wanted the inquiry to be conducted by the Election Commission itself.

“We completely agree that the assets we declare annually should be properly scrutinised, but not by any other department except the Election Commission,” another participant of the meeting argued.

He said the political leadership, which attended the consultative meeting, extended their support to the Election Commission for developing an indigenous mechanism to verify parliamentarians’ assets.

Secretary of the Election Commission Ishtiaq Ahmed conceded that the issue figured in Tuesday’s meeting and said the idea was first discussed at a workshop a few months ago.

Ahmed said that the Election Commission needed assistance of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Auditor General of Pakistan because it did not have any such mechanism in place.

Interestingly, the meeting was not attended by two mainstream political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2011.