Fact-check: No salaries have been disbursed to PTI MNAs since resignations
PTI’s Ali Haider Zaidi shared his bank statement which showed that he received his last salary from NA on March 31
Updated Monday Oct 03 2022
Politician Ali Haider Zaidi had said that lawmakers from the PTI have not been receiving their salaries and allowances from the national assembly since April.
The statement is true.
Claim
On September 27, during a talk at the US-based think tank, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that he advises former prime minister Imran Khan to “respect democracy, respect democratic institutions”.
“Do your job,” the minister added, “You’ve got X amount of MNAs that are still collecting their salary and have refused to come to parliament for the many past months.”
When the statement was shared on Twitter, Zaidi, a senior member of Khan’s political party, the PTI, responded in a tweet that the parliamentarians who resigned from the lower house “are not getting any salaries.” He added that the last credit in their bank accounts was in April 2022.
Fact
Mir Muhammad Shah, media officer at the national assembly, confirmed the statement made by Ali Haider Zaidi.
He told Geo Fact Check that the “PTI MNAs’ salaries have not been released since the time they resigned.” Saeed Bhatti, the section officer of finance and accounts at the national assembly, also confirmed that salaries have not been disbursed since the resignation.
Around 125 PTI members of the national assembly resigned on April 11, after Imran Khan was removed from power through a vote of no-confidence.
Geo Fact Check also reached out to Amjid Ali Khan, a former PTI lawmaker from Mianwali. Khan said that from the time he resigned to date “no allowances, no salaries” have been disbursed.
Further, PTI’s Zaidi shared his bank statement with Geo Fact Check which showed that he received his last salary from the national assembly on March 31 in the amount of Rs231,634. “There have been no transactions to date after that,” he told Geo Fact Check.
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