ISLAMABAD, Aug 15: The government on Tuesday denied any wrongdoing in the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) sale and pointed to the option of seeking a review of the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the deal, as parliamentary opposition pressed on its demand for Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to resign.
On the third day of a National Assembly debate on the scrapped deal, Information Technology and Communications Minister Awais Ahmed Leghari said the prime minister had acted in accordance with the privatisation law and that “we have the right to ask the judiciary for a review” of the judgment.
Mr Leghari, who was minister in charge of privatisation at the time of the PSM privatisation in March, later told reporters his remarks did not mean the government had decided to apply for a review but only referred to the option that could be exercised by any party within one month of the issuance of the detailed judgment, which was done a week ago.
Shah Mahmud Qureshi of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) urged the prime minister to “own his responsibility as a gentleman” in the PSM sale as head of the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) and resign forthwith, and called for setting up a commission to investigate “loot and plunder” done in the name of privatisation.
Mr Qureshi said the PSM sale had negated the government’s own claims of transparency, accountability and good governance and said even the Council of Common Interests (CCI), reconstituted on the Supreme Court’s directive, violated the court ruling by approving 28 already completed and 10 new privatisations.
He said the PSM issue should have come to a joint sitting of the parliament after North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani had differed with the CCI’s majority decision to offer the PSM for sale again.
But he was countered by Minister of State for Overseas Pakistan Mohammad Raza Hayat Harraj who said, on a point of order, that such a move could be made by the NWFP government that had differed with the Council of Common Interests rather than by the federal government.
PPP member Nayyar Hussain Bokhari said the speaker should refer the names of all members of the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation to the Chief Election Commissioner for disqualification.
But the demand was opposed by Farooq Amjad Mir of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
