ISLAMABAD: The government told the National Assembly on Thursday it was ready to provide lists of beneficiaries of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) as well as of big loan write-offs in the past, and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said politicians could be less than ‘other people’ who gained from former president Pervez Musharraf’s controversial decree.

The assurance about the lists came from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan while several members from both the opposition and ruling coalition demanded a list of people who got write-offs of big bank loans during the Musharraf regime and some from the opposition wanted to know the names of all those who had criminal cases against them withdrawn under the NRO.

The demands came two days after the government said it would not seek parliamentary approval of the NRO by the deadline of Nov 28 after it lost a constitutional protection under a July 31 Supreme Court ruling that nullified General Musharraf’s Nov 3, 2007 extra-constitutional emergency proclamation.

While referring to the demand for the list of the beneficiaries of loan write-offs, which PML-N member Khwaja Mohammad Asif put at Rs60 billion, Mr Awan said: ‘The government has no hesitation to give this list. If they want, it will come.’

And about the beneficiaries of the NRO, he said at a later stage: ‘I have no hesitation. We are prepared to bring that list to the house, and we will present it before this house.’

There were calls from both sides of the house for setting up a committee to decide ways for the accountability of loan defaulters, but the issue got sidetracked after PML-Q parliamentary leader Faisal Saleh Hayat voiced doubts about the usefulness of such a course and about the government’s claims of sincerity. Nobody moved a formal motion for the constitution of such a body before.

‘Think about your class’

Both the prime minister and the parliamentary affairs minister took exception to a couple of newspaper clippings that PML-Q’s Saleh Hayat waved in the house saying they were about alleged corruption by a high government authority he did not name, with Mr Gilani appealing to members in general to refrain from contributing to a perceived campaign of vilification against politicians as a class. Complaining that an impression was being created that ‘only politicians are corrupt’, Mr Gilani said: ‘For God’s sake think about your own class’ and added: ‘When the list of NRO (beneficiaries) comes, perhaps you will find other people will be more than politicians.’

The prime minister recalled his call to a joint committee of the lower and upper houses to expedite its recommendations for constitutional amendments – including those for the repeal of the controversial Musharraf-era 17th Amendment and article 58 (2) (b) to restore sovereignty of parliament – and said a new accountability law would be brought soon in line with the Charter of Democracy signed by assassinated PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif in 2006.

He disagreed with Mr Hayat’s complaint about the lack of an effective machinery to tackle corruption after the present government made the National Accountability Bureau ineffective without providing an alternative, and said forum like parliament, the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee and an ‘active and independent judiciary’ could look into such complaints.

He also referred to his government plans to remove a sense of deprivation in Balochistan province, and said: ‘We want to bring a package in a joint sitting (of parliament) that could remove this deprivation.’

A motion moved on Wednesday to discuss the law and order situation in the country was on the agenda but could not be taken up before the house was adjourned until 10am on Friday.