ISLAMABAD, April 29: PML-Q lawmakers staged a token walkout on Tuesday after clashing for the first time with the ruling coalition members in the Senate. They complained that they had been denied sufficient time to respond to the finance minister’s statement.

Lawmakers of other opposition parties, including the MQM, PML-F, Jamaat-i-Islami and independents, did not follow suit.

Defending his party’s decision to adopt a resolution in the National Assembly asking the government to move the UN to set up a commission to investigate the murder of Benazir Bhutto, Leader of the House Mian Raza Rabbani said that people opposing the move were trying to cover up an ‘international conspiracy’.

He dismissed the idea that a UN probe might lead to giving the world body access to Pakistan’s nuclear installations. An opposition lawmaker, S.M. Zafar, said the move was ‘against national interests’.

Mr Zafar argued that a similar UN commission had cost the Lebanese government 300 million pounds with ‘extremely dismal findings’, adding that it had failed to expose the people involved in the conspiracy to kill former premier Rafik Hariri.

Citing the charter of the proposed commission, he said the commission would ‘gain access to any site and anyone’, which could leave the country’s sensitive defence installations vulnerable.

He also reminded the house that eminent diplomats Munir Akram and Riaz Mohammad Khan had opposed giving the UN commission access to Pakistani sites under the UN Charter. Mr Zafar said: “Once this matter is handed over to the UN, it will go out of our hands.”

Earlier, the house witnessed a lively debate on the depreciation of rupee against dollar after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar blamed the economic recession on ‘inept and delayed’ policies of the previous government and the caretakers.

While Mr Dar dismissed newspaper reports about rupee depreciation, former leader of the house Wasim Sajjad said he did not understand why the dollar, which was depreciating against all other currencies including pound sterling, euro and yen, was gaining on the rupee.The minister, in response to a call-attention notice moved by MQM’s Col (retd) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, said when the PML-N government was dismissed, a dollar was worth Rs54 and when the present government took over it was at Rs62 which surged to Rs66 mainly because of the huge subsidy on petroleum products.

He said that $10 billion was needed for petroleum import during the current year and the developments of the past 12 months had disrupted the monetary balance because the caretaker government had the transfer of the increase in petroleum prices to consumers.

He claimed that the caretaker government had ignored a number of summaries put up before the general election, calling for increasing petrol prices and only took action after the elections to benefit the outgoing government.

Mr Dar sought suggestions from the opposition to correct the wrongs that had been done by the previous government, saying the coalition government wanted to take along all parties in providing relief to the masses.

He said trade deficit and overdraft had risen toRs481 billion mainly because of the huge oil subsidy amounting to Rs135 billion against a budgetary provision of just Rs35 billion.

The ANP’s Ilyas Bilour tried to speak on a point of order but the chair did not allow him. He, however, kept shouting that the ‘illegal ban’ on the movement of wheat had resulted in ‘starvation in the NWFP on a massive scale’. In the end, when he was not allowed to take to the floor, he walked out.

Several opposition members said that instead of citing reasons behind the rupee depreciation, the finance minister was resorting to ‘a blame game’.

The chair did not interfere during a heated exchange between Leader of the Opposition Kamil Ali Agha and Leader of the House Raza Rabbani during which the opposition lawmakers walked out of the house. Treasury members persuaded the opposition to return to resume the debate.

Mr Rabbani apologised to Mr Agha after the opposition members’ return and assured that members of the treasury would ‘never again hinder anyone’ from speaking on any subject in the house.

Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro, who was the caretake prime minister, defended his government’s decision of raising petroleum prices after the elections.

Raza Rabbani also placed an inquiry report about the suicide incident in New Karachi.

He said the case had been taken up by the Senate chairman and himself with the chief minister and the IG Sindh. The IG had reported that two of the people involved in harassing the deceased were in police custody while the other was likely to be netted soon.

According to the report, the Sindh police chief had deployed two policemen at the residence of the bereaved family and had asked them to register an FIR, but so far they had not recorded their statements because they were still in shock.

Leader of the Opposition Kamil Ali Agha praised the government’s efforts in this regard but stressed the need for effective steps to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

Mohammad Ali Barohi of the MQM drew attention of the house to reports that the Sindh government was about to cancel the appointments of about 500 candidates who had been cleared by the Sindh Public Service Commission between 2005 and 2008.

Prof Sajid Mir said that the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited was defrauding its consumers through various packages.

Sardar Jamal Leghari opposed the government’s move to lift ban on students unions and said that it had resulted in the Monday’s clash between two student organisations at the MAO College in Lahore. However, Mian Raza Rabbani defended the decision and said the ban on student and labour unions suited only dictators and feudal lords.