Opposition decides to give tough time to govt in NA

ISLAMABAD: The combined opposition in the National Assembly (NA) has decided to give tough time to the government in ongoing session of the National Assembly.

The decision was taken in a meeting held at the Chamber of the Opposition leader at the Parliament House on Thursday presided over by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and attended by Syed Khursheed Shah, former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf from PPP, ex-speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Rana Sanaullah Khan, Ahsan Iqbal, Marriyum Aurangzeb from PML-N.

The meeting discussed the opposition strategy with regard to arrest of Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani, NAB’s recent action and issue of overbilling of gas.

Talking to newsmen after the meeting, senior leader of the PPP Syed Khursheed Shah said it was decided that the opposition will raise the issue of overbilling of gas bills.

He said many people approach the opposition with the complaints of the overbilling in gas bills and complained that they had paid Rs2000 of the gas bill last year but this year on same month they had received the bills over Rs20,000. “The people were perturbed with the price hike in the country,” he said.

He said the government has facing loss of Rs2 billion to Rs2.5 billion in revenue collection and to overcome the loss the government has made the changes in the slabs in gas tariffs. “The government did not want to shift burden on those investors who had invested on them during the elections,” he said.

Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the government had broken the back of the poor of the country and people could not able to pay the bills of the gas and electricity. “The people were selling their motorcycles for paying their gas bills,” he claimed.

He said the NAB had handcuffed the professor and even to dead body of another professor. ‘What kind of the accountability it is,” he said.