ISLAMABAD: The elections of the heads of all the 40 standing, functional and special committees of the Senate were completed on Tuesday – two weeks after the expiry of the stipulated time.

Under the rules, the committees are required to become functional within two months of the oath-taking of the new members after the Senate elections.

Since the new senators had taken oath on March 12, the elections of the chairpersons of all the committees were required to be completed by May 12. However, sources said the elections of the chairmen of the committees were delayed due to differences among the opposition parties over the chairmanship of the choice committees.

During the last session, the Senate on a motion moved by PPP parliamentary leader Saeed Ghani condoned the delay in the completion of the elections of the chairpersons.

On Tuesday, three members of the Awami National Party (ANP) were elected as chairmen of different standing committees.

Shahi Syed has been elected as chairman of the committee on information technology and telecommunication and Daud Khan Achakzai has been re-elected as head of the committee on communications. Baz Mohammad Khan has been elected as chairman of the committee on overseas Pakistanis and human resources.

Out of the 34 standing and functional committees, the ruling PML-N is now heading nine committees followed by five committees by the main opposition PPP, four by the MQM and three by the ANP.

The PML-Q, PTI and the JUI-F have got the chairmanship of two committees each whereas one member each of the BNP-A, PkMAP and NP from Balochistan and the PML-F from Sindh has been elected as the committee heads. Four independents, including three from Fata, have also been given the chairmanship of different committees.

The important committees headed by the PML-N are water and power (Iqbal Zafar Jhagra), foreign affairs (Nuzhat Sadiq), law and justice (Javed Abbasi) and rules of procedures and privileges (Saleem Zia).

The PPP has got the chairmanship of the committees on interior (Rehman Malik), finance (Salim Mandviwala) and parliamentary affairs (Saeed Ghani).

The important committees being headed by the MQM are human rights (Nasreen Jalil), Cabinet Division (Tahir Mashhadi) and ports and shipping (Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif).

Shibli Faraz and Mohsin Aziz of the PTI have been elected as the chairmen of the committees on commerce and textile industry, respectively.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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