Combined opposition determined not to return to house
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, Aug 22:The combined opposition in the Senate on Tuesday vowed to continue boycotting the session unless the government apologised for its behaviour in the house on Monday.
Speaking at a joint news conference in the parliament house committee room, Leader of Opposition Mian Raza Rabbani, Prof Khurshid Ahmed, Abdur Rahim Mandokhel, Saadia Abbasi and Dr Khalid Soomro condemned what they called the government’s undemocratic and un-parliamentary attitude during the proceedings of the upper house.
They described the news item as false which suggested that Quaid-i-Azam’s portrait had been removed from the chamber of Maulana Fazlur Rahman and replaced with the portrait of his father Maulana Mufti Mehmud.
They said the treasury members were trying in vain to subdue the combined opposition’s movement to oust the immoral and undemocratic rule “under army boots”. They asked the government to immediately resign.
They condemned the passage of marriage bill in the Senate within 30 seconds without any discussion on it.
Mr Rabbani alleged that the government was involved in a series of monetary scams of which one was that of oil companies which had blackmailed it to receive an amount of Rs5 billion in advance from a total committed amount of Rs28 billion. This was done in violation of the advice by the NAB he said.
By making this payment, he said, the government had violated its own monetary laws and it was squarely involved in the sugar scam from which it had withdrawn the NAB inquiry.
He accused the prime minister’s secretariat and the ministries of finance and petroleum of being under the influence of oil companies.
He alleged that the government was coerced into making payment by multinationals which had threatened to stop supplying oil if payment was not made to them.
He named several companies, including PECO, PTCL, PSMC and HBL, of being involved in scams.
Welcoming the passage with reservations of the Pemra bill, Mr Rabbani commended exclusion of journalists from the punitive clause of the said law.
Prof Khurshid Ahmed said that the protest against the government’s attitude in the upper house would continue.
He said the Transparency International’s latest report puts Pakistan on top of the world’s most corrupt countries and Punjab was leading in corruption among the four provinces.
He warned the government against starting a confrontation between the treasury and the opposition inside and outside the parliament on these issues.
He said the government’s undemocratic attitude was an effort to conceal its corruption.
