Confusion in PTI over PAC chief nomination

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan Wednesday said that Sher Afzal Marwat should be the chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as he was named by the party’s founder Imran Khan.

He said this during a brief chat with journalists at the Parliament House, as names of Hamid Khan and Hamid Raza of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) made headlines in the media earlier in the day for the PAC top slot.

“Sher Afzal Marwat was nominated by PTI founder Imran Khan. He should be the chairman of PAC. The party’s stance is that whosoever is nominated by the party’s founding chairman, should be PAC chairman,” he maintained.

Omar said it was stated everywhere by him as the leader of opposition that Marwat should be the committee’s chairman as the slot belonged to the opposition. He contended that the chairmanship of the PAC was decided by the convention.

Earlier, in what was seen as a dramatic move, senior party leader Latif Khosa declared that PTI had decided to appoint senior leader Hamid Khan as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Talking to Geo News, PTI leader Latif Khosa had said the party had proposed the name for chairman PAC considering the experience of Hamid Khan.

He said the government was not ready to take Sher Afzal Marwat as PAC chairman. “You saw the attitude of the government, after that a new name has come. Hamid Khan was considered more appropriate, so the name was put forward,” he remarked.

Latif Khosa said that Sher Afzal Marwat has a role in bringing together political workers, whereas Hamid Khan has experience of lawyers politics but Sher Afzal Marwat was not sidelined.

It is pertinent that talking to the TV channel, a day earlier, Marwat had said that some party leaders were forcing Imran Khan not to appoint him (Marwat) as chairman PAC and name someone else instead, but Imran Khan had reversed their trick.

There were also some reports during the day, ran by private television channels, that SIC Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza had been nominated for the slot of PAC chairman.

Reports started making rounds when certain media outlets claimed that the government was not prepared to accept Marwat as PAC chairman. In this connection, the NA spokesperson had to issue a clarification Wednesday about reports attributed to the NA speaker with regard to the PAC chairman. The spokesperson had said that reports that Sher Afzal Marwat or any other member was not being made PAC chairman were baseless and concocted.