Flouting laws: 958 lawmakers yet to submit asset details

The deadline to file the statements is September 30.

ISLAMABAD: Only one-fifth or 207 of the 1,174 lawmakers serving the country have submitted statements of their assets even as the deadline for doing so is set to expire in another 72 hours.

Every member of the Senate, National Assembly and four provincial assemblies must submit details of all property owned in the last year by them, their spouse and dependent children by September 30.

Data compiled from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and its provincial offices shows that most legislators have once again completely disregarded the law.



The total strength of lawmakers in the Senate, National Assembly and provincial assemblies is 1,174, with nine seats vacant. Out of them, only 62 MNA, 30 senators, 61 Punjab Assembly members, 33 members from Sindh, 11 from Balochistan Assembly and 10 from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly have filed the details with the ECP.

The legislators, who fail to submit statements of their accounts that should be certified by a registered chartered accountancy firm, are supposed to be suspended. The law explicitly stipulates stringent punishments, but most lawmakers show callowness and fill the form with random information, mostly under-valuing the assets with impunity.

The ECP has not developed any mechanism to verify these statements.

Since 2002, when the law was enacted, the ECP merely publishes these statements in the form of a separate booklet for each house.

Since the ECP has never tried to implement the law, the whole exercise has become meaningless over the years. What is a mandatory requirement under Section 42A of the Representation of the People Act, 1976, and Section 25A of the Senate (Elections) Act, 1975, is openly flouted by the lawmakers themselves.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2015.