April 11, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 4, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 10: The ruling coalition’s parliamentary group in the National Assembly announced on Thursday formation of nine standing committees comprising representatives of all political parties.

The house approved names of the members of the committees read out by Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Farooq Naik. The house was informed that the chairpersons of the committees would be elected later from amongst the members.

The standing committees formed in the first phase are on Finance and Revenue, Information and Broadcasting, Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, Law and Justice, Privatisation and Investment, Public Accounts, Science and Technology, States and Frontier Regions and Youth affairs. Minister for Information Sherry Rahman said it went

to the credit of the present government that it had formed nine standing committees in one go and got the names of their members approved in the first regular session of the lower house.

She said the government wanted to strengthen the house committee system in order to make every department accountable before the people and a proposal to give media access to proceedings of the committees was under consideration.

The parties which have been given representation in the committees are PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, ANP, MMA, BNP and Fata and independents lawmakers.

The PPP (Sherpao) which has one seat in the National Assembly and the National People’s Party (NPP) with two MNAs have not been given membership of any of the committees.