President objects to MPs salaries, perks bill

ISLAMABAD: In a parliamentary twist, President Asif Ali Zardari has raised technical objections to the Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which was passed by the National Assembly and Senate last month.

The president highlighted a legal lacuna in the bill, prompting its potential revision in a joint parliamentary session.

According to sources, President Zardari formally communicated his observations to the Prime Minister’s Office. While acknowledging Parliament’s constitutional authority to determine lawmakers’ salaries, he objected to the proposed alignment of MPs’ perks and privileges with those under the Civil Servant Act, arguing that the two legal frameworks cannot coexist. Sources indicate that the bill will now be presented for correction in a joint session of parliament, likely to be convened after the president’s address to the joint session scheduled for March 10.

Despite repeated inquiries, the Presidency has not officially commented on the matter.

When contacted, Senator Salim Mandviwalla confirmed that the president had sent observations on the bill and stated that the legal lacuna would be addressed in the joint session. “The bill will be revised in the joint session to resolve the technical issues,” he said.

The bill, approved by the National Assembly’s Finance Committee in late January under Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq’s chairmanship, proposes raising MNAs’ salaries from Rs218,000 to Rs519,000 per month, aligning them with the salaries and allowances of federal secretaries.