At least 27 members of the parliament (MPs) have assets abroad while eight parliamentarians have billions of rupees in their accounts in foreign banks, the National Assembly was told on Monday.
In a written reply to a question raised by Surayya Asghar, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Maula Bakhsh Chandio stated the list of the members of the parliament having assets abroad included 10 senators and 17 MNAs with National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza on the top of the list.
As per the list, Minister for Communications Arbab Alamgir Khan, Engineer Muhammad Tariq Khattak, Justice (retd) Fakharun Nisa Khokhar and Asma Arbab Alamgir had assets in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Engineer Usman Khan Tarkai and Parliamentary leader of FATA Munir Khan Orakzai have assets in Qatar while Muhammad Jamil Malik of PML-N has assets in Holland. Moreover, Chaudhry Zahid Iqbal and Ishrat Ashraf have assets in Britain, Farah Naz Asfahani and Dr Talat Iqbal Mayser in the United States of America while Khawaja Suhail Mansoor has assets in Canada and UAE.
The list also highlighted that NA Speaker Fehmida Mirza also has property in a foreign country, however, it was mentioned in which country she had her assets. Senator Tariq Azeem, Senator Adnan Khan and MNAs Salahuddin, Malik Azmat and Kishan Chand Parwani also have overseas assets but they have not mentioned the names of those countries.
According to the list of the Senate members who have assets in UAE include Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Sheikh, Port & Spinning Minister Babar Khan Ghouri, Senator Ishaq Dar, Gul Muhammad Lott, Muhammad Ghufran and Abdul Ghani Bakhsh. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has assets in the United Kingdom while Muhammad Azam Khan Swati has assets in the USA and UAE.
The information was prepared on the basis of the information given by the parliamentarians in their annual statement of assets and liabilities for the financial year 2009-10. Responding to another question, the law minister informed the house that the government had paid Rs 19.669 million to senior advocates for pursuing high-profile pending cases before the Supreme Court as well as in foreign courts.
According to details, Kamal Azfar was paid Rs 250,000, Raja Abdul Ghafoor, Rs 200,000 and Rs 130,000, Agha Muhammad Karim Babar, Rs 300,000, and Kojima, a law officer of Tokyo, Japan, was paid Rs 6.650 million.
Another amount paid to different lawyers as fee in 580 cases decided by the lower courts for financial year 2009-10 was Rs 4.861 million.
To another question, Minister for Human Rights stated that 9,353 cases of honour killings, rape and acid burns had occurred across the country from 2007 to 2010.