ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday informed the upper house of the Parliament that utility bills of Rs22.59 million were outstanding against 86 mosques of the capital, which were controlled by Auqaf Department.

In a written reply to the question asked by Nuzhat Sadiq of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) the interior minister said Rs11.53 million were gas bills whereas Rs11.06 million were electricity. These outstanding bills, he stated, could only be paid if the government provided requisite funds to the Auqaf Directorate under the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration.

Mr Malik complained that the current allocation of the funds was not sufficient to clear these outstanding bills of the mosques.

The minister further informed the senators that the Auqaf Department was preparing a case for supplementary grant and it would be submitted to the Finance Division through his ministry.

“As soon as the required funds are provided by the government through the supplementary grant, the outstanding bills of the mosques will be cleared,” the interior minister said.

The minister also provided a complete list of the defaulting mosques with names, locations and consumer number. Presently, there are more than 700 mosques in Islamabad under the administrative control of the Auqaf Department.

LB POLLS: Responding to a question by PML-N’s Najma Hameed, the interior minister informed the Senate that his ministry was discussing with stakeholders the local government elections in the capital.

The Islamabad High Court has directed the government “to announce the election schedule after completing all the formalities as required by respective local government laws and hold the elections as early as possible not more than six months.”

TERRORISM: According to the interior minister, a total of 1,997 incidents of terrorism had been reported in the country between January 2011 and March 2012.

In these incidents, he said, 1,644 persons, including 508 personnel of the law enforcement agencies (LEAs), had been killed and another 4,227 persons, including 1,236 LEAs officials were injured.

CORRUPTION: Replying to a question of PML-N’s Nisar Mohammad Khan, the interior minister informed the upper house that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had registered 418 cases of corruption since 2009 and that it had succeeded in recovering about Rs198 million of the looted amount.