Treasury slated for bypassing parliament on rebuilding plan
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: The government came under scathing criticism in the Senate on Monday over its “delayed response” to the earthquake disaster, its act of presenting the rebuilding plan at the donors moot without first bringing it up for debate in parliament and handing over control of quake relief and reconstruction to the army.
The lawmakers suggested that a high-powered parliamentary committee should be formed with representation from all political parties and assigned the job of planning, executing and supervising reconstruction work in order to ensure transparency in the utilisation of funds.
The upper house, which resumed its proceedings after a two-day weekend break, continued with the general debate on the October 8 catastrophe which devastated a population of 3.5 million over an area of more than 24000 square kilometre in the NWFP and Azad Kashmir. It left more than 73,000 people dead and thousands more homeless.
Raza Muhammad Raza of Pakhtookhwa Milli Awami Party claimed that lives of hundreds of quake victims could have been saved had the government and armed forces acted promptly as people lay buried under the debris and remained alive for two-three days.
According to his estimation, more than half of the quake survivors were still living without tents and relief items. He ridiculed the amount of Rs100,000 being paid to heirs of each dead, and said the victims of the 1974 quake had also been paid at the same rate.
He said the disaster caused loss of life and property at too large a scale, some of which could have been avoided. He attributed this to the government’s “ill-preparedness” to tackle such calamities.
“Lack of organised distribution mechanism deprived the deserving ones while a substantial portion of relief goods was usurped by non-locals or influential people,” he charged.
Envar Baig of PPP Parliamentarians said the reconstruction plan unveiled at the donors’ conference by President Musharraf was neither presented to parliament for debate nor to the cabinet for approval.
He criticized involvement of the army in relief and reconstruction effort, “leaving the PAF and Navy alone”. He claimed that the prices of essential commodities had been raised exorbitantly in the quake zone and the administration had failed to control the trend.
Mr Baig said that he had visited Balakot, the most devastated town, a number of times and found no evidence of the rubble being removed. He said he was told that several people remained alive under the debris for a week but no-one came to pull them out.
Minister of State for Information Ms Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli said the opposition should have attended the donors’ conference.
She praised media’s role in projecting the quake devastations and appealed to international media organs to continue covering the disaster.
BNP’s Sanaullah Baloch said the army takeover right from October 1958 to October 1999 were more “devastating earthquakes” which had put the country in great trouble. He said the nation was begging for rescue and relief from the same Britons from whom its forefathers had snatched independence.
He said while the US had banned involvement of its forces in relief distribution, “we in Pakistan have assigned the job to our forces which will not augur well for the reputation of the army”.
