Aside from suspended members, dozens of others have yet to declare their assets. PHOTO: FILE
According to the notification‚ those suspended include two senators‚ three members of the National Assembly‚ four members of the Punjab Assembly‚ nine members of the Sindh Assembly‚ seven members of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and one member of the Balochistan Assembly.
Aside from those members who were suspended, dozens of others have yet to declare their assets.
Federal minsters who did not declare their assets include the Minister of State Khurrum Dastagir, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad, Rehman Malik, Mustafa Kamal and Faisal Raza Abidi.
The ECP was supposed to issue a notification on Monday to suspend membership of 40 lawmakers from the National Assembly and provincial assemblies for not submitting details of their assets and liabilities.
A weak and vague provision, that seeks the members of national parliament and provincial assemblies to declare their wealth every year, was inserted in the Representation of the People Act, 1976 in 2002. However, since its inception it has never been implemented and widely flaunted by the members of assemblies and Senate.
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Not only these members have to declare their assets, they must declare their tax returns for the last three yrs.then this information must be on line for common man to see. For example , I should be able to compare my income with Mr Shujat HUSSAIN or Mr Rehman Malik or Mr Nawaz sharif. At present I compare my income with Mr Obama. Most of the time , after comparison, I feel down but other times , I feel great that I do not have that much responsibility. There is old saying, A man is known by the company he keeps.
These members must declare their spouse tax return also. Once they are on suspension list all the benefits and privileges and payments must be stopped. In future , rules must be amended, if they do not declare their assets and tax returns, they must not be allowed to take the oath as member of the parliment. Period.
The ECP is a toothless government body.............it is there only to be used by the politicians at election time and then they basically become irrelevant. Why should the law makers change this status ?........it works in their interest.
Dear All;
what most of you are talking about EC "should do this and that " are reforms that was needed to conduct free and fair election.....a demand that was made by Dr Qadri. It is too late now.....what you sow so shall you reap.
And these suspensions should be with out any pay from the treasury and if they claim any benefits then it will be tantamount to corruption, not that they are immune to corruption. These people has no decency or afraid to declare their ill gotten money or busy transferring to others in the families. Would this corruption in Pakistan would ever end.
There should also be a law where ECP should have the capacity to check if the asset declaration are correct or false. This whole process is useless unless there is some mechanism to check the correctness of the assets declared.
There should be no link envy for elected parliamentarians. If they do not meet the timeline simply ban them for life, from any federal or civic office.
This law applies in all developed and civilized nations. I won't even mention Islam as the standards are even stricter/higher to be a leader.
This is one of the reforms demanded by Dr. Qadri and people called him " what not " ....
ET-- Do you have some editors to review the news ???
"Federal minsters who did not declare their assets include the Minister of State Khurrum Dastagir, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad, Rehman Malik, Mustafa Kamal and Faisal Raza Abidi"
I didn't knew that Mustafa Kamal, Faisal Raza Abidi, and Rehman Malik are also ministers ;)
Suspended? Members not submitting tax returns should be de-notified immediately. What sort of respect these guys have for law. Making it a joke in entire world.
Last week new Norwegian government took over and two days later tax paid by their entire cabinet was on the www.nrk.no website.
Let's change the law to nullify the canidiate who wrongly fiels the wealth return or does not file within the required time. If concessions are given, then people delay in filing and gets chance to manipulate their wealth status.