Membership of 16 parliamentarians restored

Election authorities restore membership of 16 lawmakers after they submitted details of their assets.

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday restored the membership of 16 parliamentarians after they submitted details of their personal assets to the authority.

Those who submitted their assets include four members of the National Assembly, including Jamiat Ulema-e-Islafm (JUI) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, his brother Attaur Rehman and federal ministers Syed Khursheed Shah. The rest of the members belong to the provincial assemblies with  seven from Punjab, four from Sindh and one from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.



Updated from print version (below)

141 parliamentarians temporarily suspended

Election authorities on Monday barred as many as 141 federal and provincial lawmakers from working until they submit details of their assets, as required under the country’s laws.

The temporary suspension will be lifted as soon as the lawmakers share documents and records of their assets with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The list of legislators includes several federal ministers and even the head of a political party.

Names of some leading politicians, including JUI-F chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman, his brother Maulana Attaur Rehman, federal ministers Syed Khursheed Shah and Education Minister Assef Ahmed Ali are included on the list.

Under the law, all parliamentarians have to share details of their assets every year by September 30 and the ECP is bound to notify on October 15 the names of legislators who do not comply with the requirement.

Providing some leniency, the ECP accepted lawmakers’ statements till Monday evening (October 18) before notifying the names of non-compliant members, ECP sources said  by October 15, there were 175 members who had not filed statements.

Among those barred from working include 34 members of the National Assembly, 69 members of the Punjab Assembly, 16 lawmakers of Sindh Assembly, 10 of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 12 from Balochistan provincial assemblies.

ECP sources said there were four senators who did not file their asset details but the chief election commissioner did not notify their names since he cannot do so on his own as the commission is still incomplete. Posts of four of its members are still lying vacant.

Although the last date for submitting statements of assets and liabilities of parliamentarians’ own and their dependents expires on September 30, the ECP gives them a grace period of 15 days which, in the true spirit of the law, is meant to provide the commission time to scrutinise the statements.

There is no procedure for verifying the statements and the commission later publishes these statements in the official gazette.

Federal lawmakers who have been temporarily suspended include: Noor Muhammad, Maulana Attaur Rehman, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Amir Muqam, Shahzada Muhiyuddin, Malik Bilal Rehman, Mohammad Kamran Khan, Syed Akhundzada Chittan, Noorul Haq Qadri, Rahila Parveen, Chaudhry Saeed Iqbal, Shahibzada Muhammad Mehboob Sultan, Rana Nazir Ahmed, Chaudhry Tassadaq Masud Khan, Rana Abdul Sattar, Umer Sohail Zia Butt, Chaudhry Naseer Ahmed Bhutta, Tariq Sabbir, Sardar Muhammad Irfan Dogar, Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, Syed Samsam Ali Shah Bukhari, Khurram Jahangir Wattoo, Rana Mahmoodul Hassan, Muhammad Akhtar Khan Kanju, Chaudhry Iftikhar Nazir, Moazzam Ali Khan, Javed Iqbal Warraich, Syed Khursheed Shah, Muhammad Jadam Mangrio, Roshanuddin Junejo, Ehsanullah Reki, Surriya Asghar and Kashmala Tariq.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2010.