Opposition blasts govt for failing to control prices
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, March 16: Opposition members in the Senate severely criticised the government on Thursday for its failure to control prices of sugar, petroleum products and essential commodities which, they said, was causing immense suffering to the common man.
Speaking on a motion sought to be moved by Mian Raza Rabbani of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, lawmakers said the government had failed to fulfil its constitutional duty of providing average citizens with bare minimum facilities.
The government, however, defended its policies on prices and boasted about the achievement of 8.4 per cent GDP growth rate during the past one year.
Winding up the debate, Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan said the government had done enough to resolve the sugar crisis and added that there was no real price hike in the country.
He was confronted by opposition senators when he criticised the government of Nawaz Sharif during which sugar was exported to India.
A pandemonium-like situation emerged when opposition members Saadia Abbasi, Raza Muhammad Raza, Rukhsana Zubairi, Dr Safdar Abbasi and others rose to stop Mr Khan from criticising the former prime minister.
Deputy chairman Jan Muhammad Jamali, who chaired the sitting, was able to control the situation after some time.
Both the opposition and treasury benches then criticised the growing expenditure of the president’s house and prime minister’s secretariat at a time when the government had failed to fulfil its constitutional obligation of providing employment to people and increasing the minimum wages in the face of rising prices.
In a debate spanning over six hours, most lawmakers called for a special committee to monitor and check the price-hike and propose guidelines to overcome the crisis.
The senators said official claims about swelling foreign exchange reserves and the high growth rate were of little value as the government had failed to protect consumer rights against callousness of hoarders, profiteers and other market manipulators.
They were unanimous in slamming the National Accountability Bureau for abandoning a probe into the sugar price scam under a threat from influential people.
Babar Awan of the PPP said that according to article 38 of the Constitution the state must provide every citizen with a job in accordance with his/her capability, basic needs, etc.
He regretted that successive rulers had forgotten this constitutional duty making people to speak the same language which their brethren in former East Pakistan used to speak.
Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said the wholesale price index had increased by 9.4 per cent in February while sugar price had soared by more than 50 per cent in one year.
He said hoarders with clandestine support of politicians and government had been able to keep 400,000 to 800,000 tons of sugar in their stocks to create an artificial shortage.
He also mentioned shooting up of oil prices to Rs56 per litre as against Rs21 per litre a few years ago. He said prices of petroleum products had been increased 119 times since 1999.
The veteran parliamentarian said that price spiral had curtailed wages by 3 per cent in the past six years.
Abdur Rahim Mandokhel said the country’s economic policy had no direction which was causing a major problem for the poor. He said farmers in Balochistan were hard hit by Islamabad’s policy of allowing import of commodities which were produced by them in abundance.
Salim Saifullah Khan of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League said the country did not achieve the progress as it had failed to build any dam in the last 35 years. He called for stopping extravagant expenses on government houses. Prof Ibrahim Khan of the MMA said that frequent increase in petroleum prices was the major cause of price-hike. Ilyas Bilour of the Awami National Party also spoke on the sugar crisis.
