LAHORE: Muhammad Hussain, an independent candidate contesting the elections for the national and provincial assembly of Punjab, has declared the highest amount of assets in the history of the country, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) confirmed in response to a query from Arab News on Monday.
Hussain, who is commonly known as Munna Sheikh, will be facing the former foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, and another prominent politician, Jamshed Dasti, from the National Assembly’s NA-182 constituency in the next electoral contest. He will also be fighting for a Punjab Assembly seat from PP-270 and has declared assets worth 403.11 billion rupees ($3.29 billion).
Hussain claims that he owns the land of seven villages and several orchards. This is in addition to his three residential houses and a few commercial points in the heart of Muzaffargarh city.
According to the ECP, no single candidate contesting for the national or any provincial assembly has ever declared assets anywhere near this amount.
“He is the first person in the history of Pakistan who has declared such a high value of assets in his nomination papers,” ECP Public Relations Director Nadeem Qasim told Arab News.
He added: “The ECP does not evaluate the assets of candidates at the nomination level. However, it does scrutinize assets of returning candidates and compare their declarations filed on an annual basis. If there is a huge gap among these declarations, it seeks explanation from the elected members.”
Hussain said that he had never paid taxes on these properties since it was not binding on him.
“These assets belong to my ancestors and were illegally claimed by the Dasti family,” he told Arab News.
“We fought a court case to get them back for 88 years and, only a few months back, a bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the chief justice, issued a verdict in our favor. Now the matter has reached the implementation stage. Once I get possession of my properties, I will file my returns and begin to pay taxes that are required by law.”
“My lands are situated in the heart of city and have great commercial value,” Hussain said. “I evaluated the properties with honesty and declared their correct value in my nomination papers. Other politicians should also be honest to the nation. The Supreme Court should take notice of wrong declaration filers.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) said that it has no details of Hussain’s assets since the ECP has not shared any information with the tax-collecting agency so far.
“The ECP has not shared its data with the FBR and we cannot confirm at this stage if he has paid taxes or not,” Dr. Iqbal, FBR’s media spokesperson, told Arab News.
