Millionaires’ club?
Despite the yearly declaration of assets by parliamentarians being a legal requirement, the laxities revealed during the exercise indicate that the lawmakers are not altogether happy with the exercise. To begin with there are delays in the submission of the required papers which have to be filed by September 30. Those who fail to do so are liable to be declared non-functional after October 15. Last year, the membership of as many as 222 lawmakers was suspended. They included important federal ministers also.
That the lawmakers are not forthright while filling the declaration is revealed by a studied indifference to the required details. Important questions are ignored by the simple remark “not applicable“ without stating the reasons In the current 2010-11 declarations, numerous legislators, from both the treasury and the opposition, have maintained that the value of their property was the same as last year despite the all too normal appreciation and depreciation that takes place over time. Columns requiring the listing of the original cost and present market value have in cases been left blank. Senator Rashid Ahmad who is supposedly the richest parliamentarian on the basis of his declaration has declined to give any figures regarding the value of his coal and a soap stone mines and agricultural land by simply stating they were of “unlimited” value. This creates the perception that some of the declarations are not as transparent as they should be. In the absence of any mechanism to scrutinise these assets, lawmakers can make mockery of the declarations if they choose to.
The declarations indicate that a few of the legislators are billionaires on account of their landed property, or business or urban property acquired abroad. A couple of them, one from Punjab and the other from PK, have declared that they possess no moveable or immoveable property. In between, there are fairly well to do parliamentarians. What is clear from the data is that generally fighting elections is possible only for those who have enough money to spare. As long as election expenses are not brought under control through proper legislation, it would be difficult for a middle class candidate to enter the millionaires club that the Senate and the assemblies have morphed into.
