ISLAMABAD: In sharp contrast to the government’s claim of keeping economy as its top priority, a key parliamentary committee that deals with matters related to finance has been non-functional for the past almost five months.
The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue, Statistics, Economic Affairs and Privatisation is considered to be one of the most crucial parliamentary bodies. It was headed by former MNA Omar Ayub Khan, but it has been without its chairman since June 19 when the Supreme Court declared the election in Mr Khan’s Haripur constituency as null and void and ordered re-polling there.
The by-polls on NA-19 Haripur seat were held on August 17, but Omar Ayub, the grandson of former military ruler Ayub Khan, did not take part in the elections due to his mother’s illness and the seat was won by Babar Nawaz of PML-N.
Talking to Dawn, PPP lawmaker and member of the committee on finance Syed Naveed Qamar regretted that the government had made the important committee non-functional only because it was unable to find Omar Ayub’s replacement.
Such person-specific decisions, he said, were against the norms of democracy.
He claimed that during the PML-N’s current tenure in government the committee on finance had remained non-functional for most of the time.
“There has been no chairperson of the committee for five months and it seems the government is not really bothered about it,” said Mr Qamar, who served as the federal minister for privatisation and water and power in the previous PPP government.
“It took the government one year to appoint the first chairperson of the committee and now it seems the government will continue with the tradition of keeping the finance committee chairperson’s post vacant so that no one asks any questions,” he said.
“Unfortunately, our most reliable reports about the finance ministry’s operations and performance come from the IMF (International Monetary Fund), which is ironic.”
Mr Qamar regretted that there were no channels of communication between parliamentarians and the ministry and “there is no transparency and no oversight”.
He said the lawmakers were now getting reports that the government was planning to impose new taxes of Rs40 billion to bridge the fiscal deficit which was unacceptable. The PPP, he said, would protest on the issue in the current National Assembly session.
Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2015
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