Law to check terror funding on agenda: Cabinet meets today
By Our Staff Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Oct 14: The federal cabinet will meet on Wednesday to discuss an eight-point agenda, including an anti-money laundering law to control transfer of money through illegal channels, particularly the terrorist financing.
Cabinet sources told Dawn that the law and order situation arising out of the assassination of Millat-i-Islamya Pakistan chief Maulana Azam Tariq, MNA, and ongoing operation against suspected militants in tribal and northern areas are the other key points on agenda.
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali, who will preside over the meeting, is expected to brief his cabinet members about his recent visit to the United States and take them into confidence over the US demand for Pakistani troops for Iraq.
The anti-money laundering law, which is expected to get the cabinet approval, has been prepared in consultation with the United States.
The cabinet is also likely to approve the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Bill, 2003, aimed at bringing down some Rs1.8 trillion outstanding public debt to below Rs1 trillion by 2012 and eliminating around Rs125 billion revenue deficit by 2007.
The meeting will also discuss Protected Areas Management Project with reference to Hingol National Park and Tameer-i-Pakistan Programme for 2003-04 and beyond. The Civil Servants Amendment Act is also on the agenda.
The draft fiscal responsibility and debt limitation ordinance 2003 was cleared by the cabinet in June, but was sent back to the law ministry for vetting and modifications. In accordance with a commitment with the IMF, the law had to be enacted by parliament by August 31, 2002.
A provision in the original draft that envisaged suspension of the salaries of cabinet members in case of overspending by the government beyond a certain limit, had been done away with in the final bill, an official said.
The bill seeks to reduce the outstanding public debt by at least 2.5pc of GDP every year while ensuring that social and poverty-related expenditures remain unaffected.
The bill asks the debt policy coordination office of the finance ministry to serve as secretariat to prepare a 10-year debt reduction policy to be followed by the government.
The bill will be under the umbrella of Article 166 of the Constitution which empowers the government to borrow for financing its budgetary expenditures within such limits as parliament may fix from time to time.
