Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission has issued directives to the ECP Secretariat to fix a timeframe and adopt standard operating procedure (SOP) for the investigation of the assets of parliamentarians. The directions said that it should be mentioned in the SOP that the political finance wing of the ECP should be given authority to help NAB, FIA and other organisations, especially with regards to investigating the assets of MNAs, Senators and MPAs which they declared to the ECP this year. Sources revealed that if any discrepancy was found or falsehood proven, strict punitive action would be taken against the concerned parliamentarians. On Tuesday two senators, eight MNAs, six MPAs from Punjab and 14 MPAs from KP submitted their declaration of assets in the Election Commission. After this, the ECP took the decision to reverse their temporary disqualification. It is known that some 297 members of parliament have not revealed their assets to ECP. Due to this reason, their membership had been cancelled for the time being, as a result of which they could not take part in legislation.