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Friday March 29, 2024

PM Imran agrees on Shahbaz’s name as PAC Chairman

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Prime Minister Imran Khan has conceded in the larger interest of democracy and parliamentary norms that the opposition can choose Chairman PAC.

By Web Desk
December 13, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has agreed to grant opposition parties chairmanship of Public Accounts Committee after initially refusing to let PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif head the key parliamentary body.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the prime minister has conceded in the larger interest of democracy and parliamentary norms that the opposition can choose Chairman PAC.

He said the government with an open heart leaves this decision to Leader of the Opposition to nominate a person of his choice. But, if he deems himself appropriate for this role, then government will not have any objection on it. He appreciated the gesture of Prime Minister Imran Khan who had a big heart to not make this issue dragging.

Earlier in the day, Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser called on Prime Minister Imran Khan and discussed matters pertaining to legislation and constituting standing committees in the Lower House.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Naeemul Haq and Pervez Khattak were also present in the meeting.

Addressing the NA, Qureshi said the constitution of House committees is a very important matter for parliament to function effectively. He said the matter is still stuck on the issue of appointment of Leader of the Opposition as Chairman Public Accounts Committee. He said the opposition leader is embroiled in cases of National Accountability Bureau and the cases were not filed by this government. Qureshi said despite this we have made every effort to resolve this impasse.

Shehbaz Sharif appreciated the gesture of government, saying heading the Public Accounts Committee has been a tradition in the tenure of last two and three governments. This step will promote democratic norms and traditions and further solidify the institution of parliament.

On Wednesday, the NA Speaker held a meeting with the opposition and the government representatives to find a way out but the meeting failed to reach any consensus.

In the meeting that was presided by Speaker Asad Qaisar and was attended by NA ex-speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Rana Tanveer and Rana Sanaullah Khan from PML-N, Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP while government was represented by Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak, Finance Minister Asad Umar and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan.

The government side in the meeting stuck to its stance that the opposition should have come up with any other name for the chairmanship of the PAC except Shahbaz Sharif but the opposition was of the view that past traditions of the National Assembly should be honoured.

During the meeting, the record of the PAC pending audit paras was also sought and according to data the audit paras of the year 2916-17 were pending before the PAC while the audit paras of financial year 2017-18 were yet not presented before the PAC.

The opposition in the meeting proposed that Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif will not preside over those PAC meetings in which the audit paras of the PML-N government of financial year 2016-17 and 2017-18 will come for examination as it was used to be done in the past.

However, the government representatives in the meeting did not agree with the opposition and insisted that the opposition should show flexibility on this issue to pave the way of the formation of the standing committees of the National Assembly and when the audit paras of the present government comes up in the PAC, the opposition should audit it.

But no headway was made as both the government and opposition stuck to their stances and were not ready to move any inch from their stated positions.