ISLAMABAD: Federal Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik, Federal Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Sindh’s Labour Minister Saeed Ghani and Sindh’s Excise and Taxation Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla were among 159 lawmakers whose legislative memberships were suspended by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday over their failure to file the wealth statements for the previous financial year.
The list also included former chief minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah and former CM Balochistan Akhtar Mengal.
In addition, Ali Musa Gilani and Abdul Qadir Gilani, the two National Assembly members from Multan, who are sons of Chairman Senate Yousaf Raza Gilani, were among the lawmakers suspended by the ECP for having failed to submit the last financial year’s wealth statements.
Overall, the list of suspended legislators comprised 32 National Assembly, 50 Punjab Assembly, 33 Sindh Assembly, 28 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, seven Balochistan Assembly and nine Senate members.
A notification issued by the ECP on Friday stated that the said 159 members shall cease to function as lawmakers with immediate effect till the required wealth statements are submitted to the electoral body by them.
This implies that the said lawmakers cannot attend the sessions of their respective legislatures, and cannot continue to perform functions in their respective official capacities, till the required wealth statements are filed with the ECP, and their legislative memberships are restored by the electoral entity.
On 16 January each year, the legislative memberships of those lawmakers, who do not submit the required wealth statements for the previous fiscal year to the ECP by 15 January, are suspended under Section 137(3).
“The Commission shall, on the sixteenth day of January, by an order suspend the membership of a member of an assembly and Senate who fails to submit the statement of assets and liabilities by the fifteenth day of January and such member shall cease to function till he files the statement of assets and liabilities,” this Section reads.
On 1 January, each year, the ECP publishes the names of legislators who do not share the required wealth statements, under Section 137(2) of the Elections Act, 2017.
The related list issued by the ECP this 1 January revealed that nearly a dozen members of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s federal cabinet, including six federal ministers, were among the 446 legislators in the six legislative houses who did not submit their wealth statements of the last financial year with the electoral body, failing to fulfil a key legal requirement.
The members of the Parliament and provincial assemblies were required to submit to the ECP, by 31 December 2025, the statements of assets and liabilities, including those of their spouses and dependent children, for the fiscal year 2024-25, a mandatory requirement under Section 137(1) of the Elections Act, 2017.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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