ISLAMABAD, Sept 11: Less than eight per cent of the 1,165 lawmakers have submitted their statements of assets and liabilities to the Election Commission of Pakistan because most of them apparently prefer to do it on the last few days before the deadline.

Almost all top political leaders have yet to file their statements. The last date for submitting the papers is Sept 30.

Sources told Dawn that 91 legislators had submitted their statements so far and almost all top political leaders were yet to do so. Fifteen out of 103 senators, 28 out of 338 members of the National Assembly, 47 out of 368 members of the Punjab Assembly and one out of 168 members of the Sindh Assembly have filed their statements.

But none of the members of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies have done it.

An official of the ECP said most of the lawmakers usually filed their statements on the last date, while dozens of them did it after suspension of their membership.

He said the commission had asked the lawmakers on July 1 to submit statements, but only 7.75pc of them had fulfilled the mandatory requirement under Section 42A of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 and Section 25A of the Senate (Elections) Act, 1975.

The ECP has again reminded them to submit yearly statements of assets and liabilities of their own, their spouses and dependents by Sept 30.

According to the ECP, prescribed forms are available, free of cost, from the Election Commission secretariat, Islamabad and offices of provincial election commissioners in each provincial capital.

Forms are also being sent to the Senate secretariat, National Assembly secretariat and secretariats of all the four provincial assemblies. Forms can also be downloaded from ECP’s website.