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| 04 March 2004 | Thursday | 12 Muharram 1425 |
Govt accused of bypassing opposition
ISLAMABAD, March 3: Opposition in the Senate on Wednesday accused the government of bulldozing the process of forming different standing committees in the house by not taking the opposition into confidence.
The issue was raised when Minister of State for Law and Justice Raza Hayat Hiraj introduced a bill to establish Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan, which subsequently was referred by Chairman Senate Muhammadmian Soomro to the committee concerned, to be set up in due course of time.
The opposition protested by raising the point that the formation of the house committees had yet to be finalized, despite the passing of one year. Leader of the House in the Senate Wasim Sajjad, however, tried to assuage the opposition by saying that the standing committees would be announced soon within the current session.
Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali had already allowed the establishment of different standing committees after his opinion was sought in this regard, Mr Sajjad said.
The Senate secretariat, he said, was finalizing the composition of the committees in accordance with the preferences of members, who had informed the office about their choices in this regard, adding the opposition would also be consulted before the finalization of the committees.
However, PPP Senator Dr Safdar Abbasi accused the government of ignoring the opposition in the process of forming the committees and vowed to resist the government's alleged attempt to bulldoze the entire process.
Prof Khurshid of the MMA also asked the government ensure reflection of the composition of the Senate in the process of forming the committees. Ishaq Dar of the PML-N said that signals given by the leader of the house were not encouraging as it seemed that the treasury benches were not in a mood to take the opposition along with them in this regard.
Ishaq Dar cited past precedence when the opposition was always a party to any such decisions and urged the government not to do away with the past traditions.
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