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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Deadlock ends: Govt, Opp agree on formula for NA committees

By Asim Yasin
December 20, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Deadlock between the government and opposition on formation of National Assembly’s committees ended on Wednesday as both the sides agreed to representation and chairmanship of the standing committees as per their strength and on proportionate basis. The government wanted to bring a new formula for the chairmanship of the standing committees by giving chairmanship of 17 committees to government members, while the opposition claimed a right of chairmanship of 19 committees. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaisar the Parliament House. The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Law Minister Farogh Naseem, Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan from government side, while from the opposition Rana Tanveer Hussain, Shiza Khawaja, Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Shazia Marri, Maulana Abdul Wasey and Shahida Akhtar Ali participated.

It was decided that the process of the formation of the standing committees will be started from tomorrow (Friday) and in first phase two standing committees -- Committee on Law and Justice and Public Accounts Committee -- would be formed.

It was also agreed between the government and opposition that the opposition will get the chairmanship of those standing committees which they had in the previous NA during the tenure of the PML-N government.

Talking to media persons after the meeting, Parliamentary Leader of the PML-N Rana Tanveer Hussain said the two committees of Law and Justice and Public accounts Committee would be formed on Friday.

“We were assured that opposition will get representation in the committees according their strength in the National Assembly,” he said.

Rana Tanveer said it was agreed that they will give chairmanship of 12 standing committee, which were previously with the opposition in the previous National Assembly, while negotiations for additional standing committees would be worked out. He said the opposition has finalised the list of its members for the standing committees, but so far the government has not finalised its members.

Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP said the chairmanship of 19 standing committee is the right of the opposition as per its strength in the National Assembly, but the government insisted that they wanted to review the formula in this regard.

He said the opposition will take a decision after the government’s gives its revised formula.