The Election Commission of Pakistan has made public the assets detail of members of the national assemblies which they have submitted to the ECP. This detail is not only funny but is deeply regrettable. After the fake degrees now false details of wealth has demonised the lawmakers. Who can believe that the Prime Minister doesn’t have his own car and he only has one house in Muslim Gilani Colony Multan worth Rs three million when everybody knows that he has two houses in Defence Housing Authority, Lahore, one in his own use and the other his son’s.
Similarly, the declaration of assets by the opposition leader and other heads of the political parties are questionable. The question is why our lawmakers do not have the moral courage to declare correct worth of their assets which are in the name of their wives, sons, daughters and other close relatives. The question is how to make lawmakers honest with moral courage to tell the truth to the people. Is there any law which makes it punishable with life imprisonment and confiscation of properties for the wrong declaration by the legislators?
If there is no such law then it is imperative to have such a law. It should also have the provision which allows the state to purchase with 40 percent premium those assets which are declared by the member of the national and provincial assemblies. I am sure that the state will make good money by selling those assets. For the verification of the assets, the responsibility of investigation should be entrusted to the ISI which already has a file on each politician, so it will be not difficult to know the real wealth of poor representatives.
I don’t understand why our politicians are afraid of telling the truth to the people. It is common knowledge that the mainstream parties’ chiefs have worth billions of dollars assets in foreign countries. As long as we have dishonest and corrupt politician, there is no hope for the poor people of Pakistan to have their dream of Pakistan fulfilled.
S T HUSSAIN
Lahore
