Shibli says opposition shares responsibility for no legislation

ISLAMABAD: Leader of the House in the Senate Syed Shibli Faraz Sunday disputed the opposition’s contention of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s failure in pushing legislative business through the Parliament, saying the opposition parties are equally to blame for this scenario.

The PTI-led government has faced criticism at the hands of opposition parties for its failure during its first three months to pass any piece of legislation, which ran contrary to its claim of believing in the Parliament.

“How can they blame the PTI outright for having not done any legislation? Is the PTI alone in the Parliament? There are several other parties, particularly those in the opposition, and they are equally responsible for this situation,” he maintained while talking to The News here.

Asked why the PTI was adamant on having any other opposition lawmaker as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) than Leader of Opposition Shahbaz Sharif, he said his party’s position was quite logical that how could the leader of a party, which had just completed its five-year tenure in the government, be auditing his own government’s projects and schemes.

“There has to be flexibility or mutual cooperation, you may say, from both sides to get the things going. The government can’t alone be blamed. I am confident that the two sides will agree soon to a common formula,” he maintained.

Shibli Faraz was hopeful that the deadlock on the PAC chairman would be broken soon and then this would lead to formation of the National Assembly’s standing committees.

“Who will head PAC has been a stumbling block. Once it is removed, I can foresee a degree of cooperation and congeniality between the treasury and opposition benches in the legislature,” he said in optimistic tone.

“We have four-five very important bills before us and they mainly concern public like a proposed piece of legislation on facilitating the women right of inheritance,” he pointed out.

Contrary to his observations, the opposition puts the blame of rendering the Parliament almost non-functional on the PTI-led government, which is in minority in the Senate while commands majority in the National Assembly. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the major opposition party in the National Assembly, has threatened not to be part of the House standing committees if Shahbaz was not made the PAC chairman.