06 February 2005	Sunday	26 Zilhaj 1425

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PESHAWAR, Feb 5: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Balochistan Governor Owais Ghani are meeting in Islamabad on Monday to discuss the situation in the province and help expedite constitutional reforms aimed at greater provincial autonomy.

Mr Ghani, who was in Peshawar for the weekend, told Dawn that he would seek the prime minister's help to speed up the introduction of constitutional package that would increase the quantum of provincial autonomy to redress the sense of deprivation among smaller provinces.

He declined to go into the specifics of the proposed reforms but said there were indications that the parliamentary committee that had been entrusted with the job would recommend the scrapping of the concurrent list in the Constitution.

"The committee is looking at the whole issue of the provincial autonomy with a broad spectrum. There are indications that the concurrent list might be abolished. They may also be looking into the National Finance Commission.

There will be horizontal as well as vertical review and I hope that the package the committee will come up with will be more than people may expect," he said.

The governor felt confident that the committee would submit its report in the next two to three weeks and the government would be able to muster the required two-thirds majority in parliament to push through the constitutional amendments.

"I am confident we will be able to achieve the support of the opposition parties as well. The parliamentary committee is fairly broad-based and all-encompassing to represent the views of all the political parties. What we need is a consensus document and I am sure the committee will be able to achieve that."

He said that one of the objectives of his meeting with the prime minister would be to help expedite the introduction of reforms. "Let's tell the people what we have to offer and put it on the table," he remarked.

Mr Ghani said that President Pervez Musharraf fully supported the idea of granting maximum autonomy to the federating units.

He did not agree with the view that the alleged gang-rape of a leady doctor in Sui had actually triggered the attacks on gas installations and said there had been reports of possible attacks for quite some time.

The governor said security forces had interdicted a massive amount of arms and ammunition from Afghanistan into Balochistan. "The nature of the arms and ammunition was such that they could not have been used in any intra-tribal warfare. It meant that those seeking those kinds of weapons were aiming to launch a bigger attack," he said.

He declined to name any foreign country for the situation in Balochistan but said that the amount of money spent on those weapons in the past 10 months or so and the logistic support given to certain elements came to roughly about half a billion rupees.

He said that while the government was alive to its security requirements, it had no plans of launching any military operation in Balochistan.

"Absolutely not. The government has had no plan of launching any military operation. There is one battalion of our forces there to protect installations. But let me be very clear also, any attack again will be met with an overwhelming response. We are not going to take things lightly."