PESHAWAR: Opposition parties in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly have demanded production of the detained minister for mines and minerals in the House as the government admitted lacunas in the law on the provincial Ehtesab Commission.

Lawmakers from the opposition benches on a joint point of order accused the government of using the commission as a tool of character assassination and victimisation of political opponents and officers serving in the province.

They asked Speaker Asad Qaisar to issue order for the production of Minister Ziaullah Afridi, who is in the custody of the commission.

Afridi, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, was arrested on July 9 on the charge of causing huge losses to the exchequer by misusing powers.

When lawmakers asked the chair whether he was formally informed about the arrest of the minister, Asad Qaisar said the relevant authorities had yet to intimate him.

Speaker did not issue any ruling about the production of the detained minister during the current sitting.

Qaumi Watan Party MPA Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli while taking the floor said under Rule 63 of the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Procedure and Conduct of Business Rules, 1988, the authority was bound to inform the speaker about the arrest of any members of the house.

“Under the said rule, the court or the executive authority shall immediately intimate such facts to the speaker,” she said.

The lawmaker said initially, the government dissolved anti-corruption department after the passage of Ehtesab act but later, restored it by amending the law.

She said two anti-corruption bodies were functioning parallel and thus, causing confusion.

Anisa Zeb, however, said the provincial government should be given credit for arresting its own minister over the alleged corruption.

Opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman said the government was victimising its opponents in the name of accountability.

He said the opposition would support across the board accountability and urged the government to remove flaws from the law.

Awami National Party MPAs Sardar Hussain Babak, Syed Jafar Shah and Ahmad Khan Bahadur alleged that the government had begin media trial of leaders of their party and Pakistan People’s Party.

They said the Ehtesab Commission should take action on merit.

“It seems that the accountability has been targeted at ANP,” Sardar Babak said, adding that his party was not afraid of accountability.

He alleged that propaganda campaign had been launched against the ANP leadership, while an impression had been created that name of some people would be put on exit control list.

He said the Ehtesab Commission had become the ‘Pervez Khattak Commission.’

“Corruption is like a cancer and his party will support evenhanded accountability of the corrupt people,” he said.

PPP lawmaker Nighat Orakzai said her party and ANP were targeted in the name of accountability.

She said senior officers were being humiliated through false corruption charges and that they had stopped working.

Nighat Orakzai demanded production of the arrested minister in the assembly.

Former minister Bakht Baidar Kahn of QWP said he was removed on the charge of corruption but the government had yet to prove the charge in the court of law.

MPA Babar Saleem, whose Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan is the coalition partner of PTI, also accused the government of victimising the minister.

He alleged that the health minister had misused authority by appointing blue-eyed people to a medical college in Swabi.

“If posting or transfer is a crime, then the health minister had appointed and posted dozens of people, so the commission should take action against him,” he said.

In a joint reply, law minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi, public health engineering minister Shah Farman and elementary and secondary education minister Atif Khan said a committee was revisiting the existing Ehtesab act to identify weaknesses.

They said the committee held its first meeting on Monday, while two more meetings would take place to propose amendments to the law.

The ministers said lacunas would be removed from the law through an amendment and that the opposition should give input in this respect.

Speaker Asad Qaisar directed the government to include parliamentary leaders of the opposition parties in the committee and seek their suggestions.

The committee will meet tomorrow (Wednesday).

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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