Wolesi Jirga summons finance minister

KABUL — or lower house of parliament — on Monday summoned Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhelwal, but the Karzai cabinet member said he would not appear before lawmakers.

“The parliamentarians accused Zakhelwal of violating the law in five cases and asked him to offer them an explanation on Saturday,” a spokesman for the finance ministry, Najib Manalai, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The house blamed the minister for failing to take advisors on foreign trips, nepotism in appointments, misuse of authority, giving contradictory budget figures in 2011 and collecting money for President Karzai’s election campaign.

Khwaja Siddique Ahmad Osmani, an MP who voted for summoning Zakhelwal, said the decision had been taken last month.

Manalai said the reasons for calling the minister were unacceptable. He accused some MPs of making illegal demands on the minister over the past one and a half years.

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