Dismiss ministers having conflict of interest, demands NA opposition

ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the National Assembly Tuesday demanded the government remove ministers from the federal cabinet having conflict of interests and responsible for sugar and wheat crisis in the country.

“If the government says that parliamentarians having conflict of interest should not be a member of a standing committee of National Assembly and the Senate, then the same should also be applied to the cabinet members,” PPP parliamentarian Shazia Marri said while speaking on a point of order in the National Assembly.

She said it happened that a person having conflict of interests was appointed at helm of affairs of the petroleum sector and everybody knew what happened then. “The prices of petroleum products were increased by Rs25 per litre overnight,” she said.

Shazia said the sugar and wheat crisis should have been taken care of had the same formula of conflict of interest been applied. “Ministers having conflict of interest be removed and action should be taken against those responsible for different crisis,” she said.

She regretted that it happened during this regime that an Inspector General of Police of a province was suspended when a buffalo of a poor farmer entered the landlord’s farm. Earlier, Minister for Communication Murad Saeed said parliamentarians associated with a particular business and having conflict of interest should not be members of the related standing committees of the National Assembly or the Senate.

He pointed out that there were over 50,000 under-trial prisoners in Punjab jails and over 10,000 accused imprisoned in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, who were yet to be convicted whereas as a man sentenced by the Supreme Court is out of the country and his party leaders wanted to talk about him in the Parliament. “Then those under-trial accused person in jails should also be allowed to speak in the Parliament,” he said.

Meanwhile, responding to a calling attention notice on the floor of the House, Parliamentary Secretary for Commerce Aliya Hamza said 12 million urea fertiliser bags had been provided to farmers during the current month to fulfil their needs. She said Pakistan produced record urea since 2009 and its sale had increased by five per cent.