Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday suspended the membership of 271 parliamentarians over their failure to submit their assets and liabilities details.
According to details, ECP suspended the membership of 271 lawmakers after they failed to submit details of their assets and liabilities that the ECP requires at the year-end.
The suspended parliamentarians include 136 members of the National Assembly, 21 members of the Senate, 54 members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, 48 members of the Sindh Assembly, and 12 members of the Balochistan Assembly.
According to the notification, the suspended parliamentarians include Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Ahsan Iqbal, Mohsin Ranjha, and Khawaja Asif.
ECP has forwarded the lists of the members to the speakers of the respective houses, asking them to ensure the listed members stop working.
Parliamentarians barred from parliamentary proceedings
The ECP said that lawmakers could not participate in parliamentary proceedings and their membership would remain suspended until they submit their respective statements.
Earlier in January, ECP had given a deadline to the parliamentarians to submit the details of their assets by January 15, 2023.
The ECP released a list of lawmakers from the Lower and Upper Houses and the provincial assemblies who failed to submit their assets details.
In its notification, the commission stated that some lawmakers did not submit their assets details despite the expiry of the December 31 deadline. The commission asked the lawmakers to submit their assets details by January 15; otherwise, their parliament membership will be suspended on January 16.
The list showed that several federal ministers had not submitted their statements of assets so far. The federal ministers included Religious Affairs Mufti Abdul Shakoor, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Ayaz Sadiq, Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha, Syed Basit Sultan Bukhari, Khursheed Shah, Agha Hussain Toori.
Fawad Chaudhry, Shafqat Mahmood, Ali Nawaz Awan, Asad Umar, Asad Qaiser, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and Omar Ayub Khan from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were also named on the list.
