Opposition challenges amendments: Senate debate on Money Bill
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, June 14: The opposition in the Senate rejected 15 of the 21 amendments proposed through the Money Bill which, it said, violated Article 73 of the Constitution. The opposition leaders also demanded their withdrawal.
Leader of the Opposition Mian Raza Rabbani on a point of order said that last year the government had bulldozed a few amendments through the Money Bill and this time it was adopting the same approach as it intended to pass a few laws pertaining to the Companies Ordinance.
He said these laws, if passed, would disturb privacy of various companies on flimsy grounds.
Later, Mr Rabbani told Dawn he would go to any length, even moving the court, after consulting his party and other opposition parties if these laws were passed by the National Assembly. He said under the proposed laws the State Bank would be empowered to intervene in any company’s private accounts on the basis of suspicion.
Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad agreed with Mr Rabbani and said these amendments should not be made part of the Money Bill without a full-fledged debate in both the houses of the parliament.
He said if the government desired to pass these laws, it should bring them separately and warned, “We will not tolerate by-passing of this house in legislation.”
Earlier, taking part in the budget debate, treasury lawmaker S.M. Zafar said the post-17th Amendment period had been semi-democratic and we need now to go ahead on the path of complete democracy.
He hoped that President Pervez Musharraf will fulfil his historic responsibility and all his steps will be within the constitutional limits.
Babar Awan of the PPP Parliamentarians said the budget does not provide any worthwhile allocations for the betterment of womenfolk against the tall claims of the government that it was empowering them. He said the water and power minister should resign after countrywide protests against the unprecedented load-shedding and his confession that he had no influence over Wapda bosses.
Enver Baig of the PPP ridiculed government plan of opening 5,000 new utility stores during the next fiscal year as, he said, it had made similar promise last year but failed to set up a single store.
He said substandard items were on sale in the existing utility stores which cater to only about 5 percent of the population. He said the government was protecting mafias responsible for scams.
Azam Swati of the MMA termed the 0.38 percent allocation for health in the budget as a joke with the people. He also slated illegal utilisation of privatisation proceeds instead of using them for debt retirement and poverty alleviation.
