ISLAMABAD, Aug 9: The upper house on Wednesday came to life in the dying moments after an otherwise dull sitting when opposition PPP lawmakers confronted the minister of state for parliamentary affairs as both hurled accusations of corruption and bank loans written off against each other.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri informed the house that two Pakistanis held in Nepal in connection with the Mumbai bomb blasts were released and returned home after no charges against them could be proved in the investigation that was carried out on the intervention of Nepal’s prime minister.
As a result of a brief uproar and exchange of shouts between the two sides, Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro perforce announced to adjourn the proceedings till Thursday afternoon.
The house, which had no substantial agenda items to dispose of, decided to prolong the proceedings on points of order in the last 45 minutes when the brawl started.
It was the second day that the upper house was without an agenda and resumed the debate on country-wide losses due to flash floods after taking up the question hour.
The chairman looked relaxed and seldom interrupted any speaker for taking more time than necessary. The members on both sides showed scant interest in maintaining a level of sanity.
Enver Baig of PPP Parliamentarians invited the attention of the house towards a newspaper advertisement with regard to House Building Finance Corporation auction of land of some loan defaulters whose defaulting amount was between 50,000 and Rs200,000.
He said most of the defaulters belonged to Abbottabad in the earthquake-hit area of the NWFP and Haripur and getting the loans back from them now would be nothing less than cruelty, adding they deserved a lenient approach keeping in view the disaster through which they had recently gone through.
Mr Baig started to name some high-profile bank loan defaulters who had got loans worth billions of rupees written off in the period of the present rulers.
At this point, Minister of State Kamil Ali Agha interrupted him and started counter allegations.
He denied that anyone in the ruling party was corrupt and pointed towards the PPP leadership which he alleged was “internationally known for corruption”.
This infuriated PPP leaders as they along with some PML(Nawaz) senators stood up to respond to the minister of state who single-handedly defied the onslaught of opposition as no other treasury member bothered to support him.
Mr Agha was more precise in blaming the leadership (Benazir and Zardari) for defaming the country by involving themselves in “massive corrupt practices”.
Dr Safdar Abbasi, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan and others in support of Enwar Baig tried to respond to the allegations of the minister and in the process the house gave a look of pandemonium.
Earlier, Kamil Ali Agha tried in vain to prove that the government had done enough to mitigate the suffering of the flood-affected people. He asked the opponents of Kalabagh dam to sit with the government to create consensus on its construction to provide the country with an edge in electricity production as well as protection against the losses caused by floods every year.
Minister for Health Naseer Khan briefed the house about what his ministry had done to help the flood-affected people. He said the federal government was in touch with the affected provinces and was providing sufficient support without any political considerations.
Dr Tahir Mashadi (MQM) said the crisis management cell had failed to come up to people’s expectations, adding that the government like all past regimes had not been able to update its arrangements to deal with disasters.
