ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not yet decided to lift the recently imposed ban on fresh administrative appointments in the government institutions and use of development fund, said the ECP secretary.

On Jan 21, the commission had banned all recruitment at the federal, provincial and local government levels with immediate effect.

The commission had also banned diversion of funds allocated for development projects and stopped the spending of the diverted funds.

Briefing media representatives, after a meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim on Wednesday, Ishtiaq Ahmed said that the commission would review all 25 references, received from different federal and provincial government departments, on case to case basis.

He added that even if the ban is lifted in those departments, “there will be no compromise on merit appointments.”

However, Khan clarified that constitutional institutions including Federal Public Service Commission, Provincial Public Service Commissions, Supreme Court and Islamic Ideology Council were exempted from the ban.

To a query, he said that dissolution of the ECP was not possible by constitutional means. Any ECP member could only be removed through a set criterion like the one being followed in cases of judges of the higher judiciary, he said.

“The commission has also decided to contact the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Higher Education Commission (HEC) to undertake strict scrutiny of the contesting candidates,” said the secretary.

The commission would chalk out the mechanism to scrutinize the electoral candidates after meeting representatives of the SBP and the FBR, he added.

In response to a question, the secretary said the ECP is yet to make a decision on delimitations of constituencies in Karachi also.

Meanwhile, Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Nazir Saeed, in a letter to the ECP, revealed that 70 per cent of the parliamentarians have failed to file their tax returns in 2011.

The letter which had earlier been sent to the election commission recommends that the ECP should declare the submission of tax details mandatory for candidates seeking to contest elections, along with their nomination papers.

The meeting also reviewed ineligibility of parliamentarians and implementation of article 62 and 63 of the constitution – APP/DawnNews