Opposition in Senate wants details of assurance to US

ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the Senate Friday sought details from the government of the reported assurance given by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin for cooperation in American military actions in Afghanistan and in quid pro quo the US will ask the IMF for relief to Pakistan in its conditions for loan(s).

Jamaat-e-Islami’s Mushtaq Ahmad, in his speech during the budget debate, claimed that according to the Financial Times, Tarin had urged the US officials to ask the IMF for relief in its conditions for the proposed package and in return assured them of Pakistan’s cooperation in US military operations in Afghanistan.

He continued that US officials had agreed to ask the IMF in this context. “We demand the details of this agreement with the US in reference to the IMF and Afghanistan be included in the Finance Bill.

Are not we again providing a shoulder to the US and whether the ground or air lines of communications will be given to them,” he asked. Mr Mushtaq claimed that the proposed budget was based on assumptions and projections which was why the IMF had postponed a review for Pakistan for three months.

Earlier, Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani ruled that the Senate was not bound to comply with any agreement made by the National Assembly and that it would move forward under the rules to take up any of those 21 bills that were earlier passed by the assembly in haste and a committee would now review them.

He gave this ruling after Leader of the Opposition Yousaf Raza Gilani had requested the chair that some of the bills, referred by the assembly, listed on the agenda, should be deferred for some time till the final decision of the proposed committee.

He contended that all such bills would go to the House standing committees, and would be referred back to the NA if these proposed amendments to them. When pressed by PMLN parliamentary leader Azam Nazeer Tarar that the House should take a lenient view, as there was some ice melting between the opposition and treasury in the NA, the chair reiterated that they were not concerned with the working of the other house and that the Senate was responsible for its own house and we would work under the law. The NA does not interfere with Senate working and this was the norm, he said.

Before State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan was about to move four bills passed by the National Assembly, one after the other, Mr Gilani said that the opposition parties in the assembly had protested against the government’s move to bulldoze 21 bills in the House and had moved a no-confidence motion against the NA Deputy Speaker.

He also noted that now NA Speaker Asad Qaiser following talks between the treasury and opposition has agreed to form a committee to see the possibility of withdrawing these bills. He pointed out that if these bills were accepted here, talks would be affected and that some middle ground should be found on the issue. He said that these bills should be deferred for some time till the time the committee is constituted. The committee should talk to both the houses, he said and added that the opposition had withdrawn the no-confidence only with the condition of reviewing the bills.

Ali Muhammad Khan said that a parliamentary committee would take the final decision and the Senate committees or House would make amendments to these bills in the light of its recommendations. After this, he moved the bills --- the Federal Medical Teaching Institutes Bill, the National Institute of Health (Re-organization) Bill, 202, the Mutual Legal Assistance (Criminal Matters) (Amendment) Bill, and the Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights (Amendment) Bill. The chair referred all the bills to the standing committees concerned.

Taking part in the budget debate, PTI’s Ejaz Ahmad Chaudhry said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had moved forward with his agenda of cutting government expenditures. He made a comparison of expenditures of the PTI government with the previous governments and said that his party had cut down expenditures of the PM House by 49 per cent in 2018.

Before 2018, the PM was spending Rs590 million per annum but PM Khan had spent Rs339 million per annum in 2019 and Rs280 million in 2020, he said. Before 2018, the PM Office was spending Rs514 million annually but Imran Khan had spent Rs305 million in 2019 and 334 million in 2020.

“This is a journey towards the destination of a welfare state whose idea was conceived by the Quaid-e-Azam,” he said.

He continued unlike the previous rulers Prime Minister Iman Khan had no camp office while former PPP PM Yousaf Raza Gilani had five camp offices, including three in Lahore and two in Multan and their expenditures were Rs579 million per annum.

Then PPP President Asif Ali Zardari had two camp offices in Sindh with 245 official vehicles and 656 security officials having a total expenditure of Rs3.60 billion. Mr Ejaz said Nawaz Sharif had one camp office in Raiwind with 2,717 police officials and the national kitty had to bear expenses of Rs4.30 billion annually for this purpose. He said Shehbaz Sharif had two camp offices with Rs572 million expenditures annually.

He also made a comparison of visits of former rulers of the PPP and PMLN and Prime Minister Imran Khan to claim that a paltry sum was spent on Imran’s foreign visits whereas Asif Ali Zardari had spent $11.73 on 134 foreign visits, former Gilani $7.02 million on 47 tours, Sharif $17.7 million on 92 visits while Imran Khan had spent $1.3 million on 28 visits.

He said that the previous prime ministers had been taking away costly gifts like BMW vehicles from Toshakhana while paying minimal amounts while Imran Khan got gifts like a watch of worth Rs16.5 million and a gold-plated Kalashnikov but lodged them with the treasure house. He said he would not talk about a former PM and the necklace gift given by the spouse of Turkey’s president.

Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar said there was no new tax on salaried class and minimum wage had been fixed at Rs20,000 while unprecedented facilities had been provided in the budget to the industries.

She said Rs260 billion had been allocated for Ehsaas programme and added that 100 per cent utilization of funds was made in budget 2019-20, whereas 97 per cent utilization of funds was seen in fiscal year 2020-21.

The Special Assistant said the stipend for the poor had been increased to Rs13,000 per family whereas total number of enrolled families had been increased from seven million to 10 million. She said reforms had been introduced to make Ehsaas Programme transparent.