NA speaker trying to make talks on ToRs successful

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq is working hard to make productive the negotiations between the government and the joint opposition parties in the parliamentary committee, constituted to prepare the Terms of Reference (ToRs) for the judicial commission to probe offshore companies, written off loans and corruption.

“The speaker is persuading and liaising with both sides to move forward in a smooth way,” an informed source, privy to the development, told The News. He said that apart from his contacts with the two sides, he will host a meeting of the key government and opposition leaders on Saturday, an hour before the scheduled session of the parliamentary committee.

The source said that because of his cordial handling, the speaker was acceptable to both sides. The confidence enjoyed by him from them makes it easy for him to play the role of a facilitator, he said.

Since assumption of his office, at no stage has the soft-spoken Ayaz Sadiq triggered any controversy due to his amicable and affable personality and non-confrontationist conduct. Although he had received a massive drubbing from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) because of the defeat that Imran Khan faced at his hands from a National Assembly constituency of Lahore, he has been even-handed with the legislators of this party during the House proceedings. None of them has ever aired any serious grievance against him in this connection.

The source said that to soften both parties, the speaker has talked to the chief government negotiator, Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, and leader of opposition Syed Khursheed Shah and others so that they agree to clinch a deal on the ToRs.

The source said that there have been no complaints from any side against the speaker when he has been presiding over the proceedings of the National Assembly. When asked by The News about his efforts, the speaker said that his job was only that of a facilitator so that the committee reaches unanimous decisions without any difficulty.

He said both sides agree that investigations should be carried out into the issues that were listed in the consensus parliamentary resolution. He was hopeful that the body would be successful in dealing with its assignment.

Ayaz Sadiq recently suspended the National Assembly membership of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Chaudhry Asadur Rehman, brother of Justice (retd) Khalilur Rehman Ramday, because of the MP’s alleged misbehaviour with the senior officials of his secretariat over a minor issue.

This was the first instance of its kind that the speaker has to take such an extreme action against a senior leader of the party that has elected him to the office. There has been no protest from any segment of the PML-N over it. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is said to have also approved it, the source said.

He pointed out that when sometime back Khursheed Shah refused to receive a set of federal ministers to discuss the matters related to the parliamentary committee, the speaker talked to the opposition leader, who agreed to hold the meeting with them.

The speaker’s role to make the discussions in the parliamentary body successful is linked to the fact that he had formed this committee on the basis of a resolution, which was unanimously passed by the National Assembly. It was also later approved by the Senate. After concluding the negotiations, the parliamentary committee will submit its report to Ayaz Sadiq.

Apart from preparing the preamble of the ToRs, the forum has not recorded any progress with the opposition particularly Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Aitzaz Ahsan and PTI stalwart Shah Mehmood Qureshi asserting that the discussions have been hit by a deadlock.

On the other hand, the government side has not given any such impression. While Aitzaz Ahsan and Qureshi have regularly articulated their views at the pressers after the conclusion of every meeting of the committee, none from the government has ever spoken except for the first day of the parleys when Ishaq Dar had briefly talked to the waiting reporters and that too only which was contained in the agreed press statement on the session of the committee.

These two opposition leaders have been insisting that their ToRs comprising 15 questions must be accepted in totality by the government otherwise there would be no progress. But the other side’s view is that only lawyers ask these questions during judicial proceedings and they can’t be made part of the ToRs. It has stated that there is no bar on the attorneys to raise any number of questions during the judicial hearings.

At present, the positions of the two parties are hardened and it will be a great challenge for the speaker to break the logjam and make the two sides come to terms in order to find out a consensus way-out.

The source said that given the pace of the deliberations in the parliamentary committee and several pressing engagements of the government especially Ishaq Dar, it seems difficult though not impossible that the body will be able to firm up the ToRs within the appointed timeline of fifteen days.