Imran avoids attending NA but gets salary regularly

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan hates to attend the National Assembly session but the salary he received so far is equivalent to the indirect tax paid by 500 rickshaw drivers in Peshawar every month.
Imagine if his salary is paid from the taxes collected from these rickshaw drivers.Imran’s protracted absence from the assembly under one and another excuse has made him the undisputed leader of MNAs notorious for not attending the session.
The attendance record compiled by FAFAEN of the parliamentary leaders has found that Imran attended the assembly only for 13 days in 27 months since voted to Parliament in May 2013 elections.
The salary he claimed in this duration is above two million rupees as an MNA gets around Rs75,000 a month excluding TA/DA etc. This amount is in contrast to a study of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in 2012 that suggested revenue contributed by different income groups.
“An average rickshaw driver in a city like Peshawar is estimated to spend about 25 percent of his income on goods subject to the sales tax and federal tax,” said the FBR report estimating his monthly income of Rs15,000.
Other than salary which is a combination of basic pay, ad hoc allowance, office maintenance allowance, telephone, sumptuary allowance and ad hoc relief allowance, an MNA also receives Rs11,250 as TA/DA during session as well as three days before and after the session. Air ticket vouchers of three lac per year and 20 return air tickets are apart from them.
Imran attended the assembly for 11 days during the first parliamentary year that had 99-day sittings and was in attendance twice during the second parliamentary year having 93-day sittings.
He didn’t attend once during the third parliamentary year that has so far done 29 sittings. The joint session called on Yemen situation that he attended in April this year was not part of the regular session counted for attendance analysis.
So far, the assembly has been in session for 221 days since its inauguration in June 2013 and Imran graced it only for 13 days, once in two month with 5 percent attendance. However, he never refused salary being MNA as if this is the only benefit to become member of Parliament.
The only parliamentary leader remained more absent than Imran is Sardar Kamal Khan Bangulzai of National Party who was in attendance for 10 days. Imran’s comrade, Sheikh Rashid, has performed better than him by attending session for 106 days. Maulana Fazlur Rehman has also been found absent more often as he attended the assembly only for 48 days.
Opposition leader Khursheed Shah has turned out to be the most punctual among the parliamentary leaders as he remained in attendance for 169 days, FAFEN’s data has found. Other parliamentary leaders like Aftab Sherpao attended for 128 days, Mehmood Khan Achakzai 146 days, Haji Ghulam Bilour 106 days, Ch Pervaiz Elahi 76 days and Ijazul Haq 54 days.