October 25, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 12, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: Opposition members on Wednesday submitted an adjournment motion to the Senate Secretariat seeking a discussion on the reports that the present regime had written off Rs54.49 billion bank loans during the last five years on the basis of a decision taken by the financial team of Gen Pervez Musharraf in Oct 2002.

The adjournment motion carries the signatures of 10

senators belonging to the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakhtoonkhwa Mili Awami Party (PkMAP).

The motion has been moved under Rule 74 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate 1988.

In their motion, a copy of which is available with Dawn, the opposition senators have quoted a press report stating that the auditor-general of Pakistan in its recent report to the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has disclosed that a total of 50,000 persons, including politicians, civil and military business concerns and business tycoons of Karachi, Lahore and other areas were the direct beneficiaries of the “massive favour.”

“Although in the past,” the motion states, “the reports of written-off loans have been appearing at different forums, including the National Assembly, this is the first time that the total written off amount has come to the surface. The chief minister of a province whose family owns sugar mills also got loans written off under this scheme.”

It added: “The chief minister of another province got loans written off outstanding against his ghee mills. Even some foreign firms and multi-national companies and a private bus service operating from Lahore to different cities of Punjab were also extended this facility.”

“This extraordinary facility was given soon after election in Oct 2002, the then finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, and his financial team at the State Bank approved a written off loan scheme in the same month

(Oct 2002) after certain

top politicians of the government put them under pre-

ssure to ease financial burden on loans from their business concerns,” it further said.

Movers of the motion are opposition leader Raza Rabbani, Enver Baig, Sardar Latif Khosa, Dr Babar Awan, Rukhsana Zuberi and Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi of the PPP; Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA, Ishaq Dar of the PML-N; Ilyas Bilour of the ANP and Abdur Rahim Mandokhel of the PkMAP.

Meanwhile, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar in a statement expressed shock over reports that the top notches of the regime had reportedly written off bank loans during the last five years and demanded that the names of the beneficiaries be made public and those involved in loot and plunder brought to book.

Mr Babar said the official report had exposed the hollow claims of accountability and rooting out of corruption by the present regime. He said anti-democracy elements in the present dispensation had been blaming the past governments for corruption but had presently been exposed themselves as the most corrupt.

He said the PPP would pursue the matter at all available forums to expose the plunderers and to bring them to book. He also urged the judiciary to take suo motu notice of the reports.

Expressing her party’s shock and anger at the ‘blatant misuse’ of public money, PPP information-secretary Sherry Rehman in a separate statement termed it a “cruel joke with the country” where 74 per cent of the population lived below two dollars a day.

Ms Rehman deplored the scheme, which she described as deeply flawed that was “shamelessly exploited by some of the most senior public figures in the government”. She criticised the role of the ministry of finance in ‘facilitating’ the move that deprived the national exchequer of the amount equivalent to over 10 times the health budget and twice the education budget of the country.

She noted that the timing of the introduction of the scheme indicated that it was an indirect part of the poll rigging exercise that marked the 2002 election.

“It is no co-incidence that the same elements that now form an integral part of the government, stood to benefit from the scheme,” she said and called for an immediate inquiry into the matter terming it a scam.