June 13, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 12: The government and opposition in the National Assembly agreed on Tuesday to pass the Federal Budget 2007-08 by June 25 after holding a 55-hour general debate.

At the outset of the NA session on Tuesday, Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain informed the house that the treasury and the opposition members had held a meeting of the business advisory committee of the house in his chamber in which it had been decided that the budget would be passed by June 25 and the present session would end on June 29.

The speaker said the government earlier wanted to get the budget passed by June 22, but at the insistence of the opposition members Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan agreed to delay the passage of the budget for three days.

He said that last year there was a 45-hour debate on the budget in the lower house and this year the time had been increased on the demands of the members.

The speaker, however, did not explain on what condition the treasury members accepted the demands of the opposition members to extend the time of the debate. Sources told Dawn the opposition members had assured the government that they would not create any hurdle in the passage of the budget that was evident from the fact that the opposition did not point out the quorum during the first day’s sitting of the assembly despite the fact that the required number of 86 treasury members were not present in the house.

Interestingly, the motion to suspend the rules of the house for the budget session was moved by chief whip of the PPP Syed Khurshid Shah, who also represented the party in the business advisory committee meeting with his party colleague Syed Naveed Qamar.

PPP secretary general Raja Pervez Ashraf had announced at a news conference last week that the opposition would give a tough time to the government and would not make any compromise on the issue of the quorum.

The speaker further informed the house that out of 55 hours, the members of the government and its allied parties had been allocated 32 hours and 30 minutes while the opposition members would speak for 22 hours and 30 minutes.

Giving further break-up, he announced that the MNAs belonging to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) would speak for nine hours and 10 minutes, the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) MNAs for eight hours and 51 minutes, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNAs for two hours and 44 minutes while the members of other opposition parties had been allocated one hour and 45 minutes.