ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: The finance ministry has expressed its inability to provide lists of bank loan defaulters to the National Assembly’s special committee on foreign and domestic loans and said the matter is outside its purview.

Mansoor Qureshi, the director-general of the ministry’s debt coordination office, told a committee meeting on Monday that the lists of defaulters were available with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the ministry could not ask it to release them. He advised the committee to take up the issue with the SBP.

Abdul Rashid Godil of the MQM said the issue of dual nationality was being frequently discussed but nobody was talking about defaulters even though the rules barred people belonging to both the categories from becoming members of parliament.

He said that those having defaulted on loans of Rs2 million or above did not qualify to contest elections. The lists should be provided to parliament and released to the media.

Committee chairperson Shahnaz Wazirali supported the demand and asked the ministry to provide the lists. But she did not press the matter when the ministry officials asked the committee to take up the issue with the SBP.

The committee criticised the continued absence from its meetings of Ahsan Iqbal of the PML-N, on whose suggestion the panel had been constituted.

Referring to the loans being taken by the government from international financial institutions, Mr Qureshi said that debt creation was mainly being influenced by the government’s fiscal operations as higher fiscal deficits required higher borrowing.

However, he added, the debt situation was generally in line with annual plans of the government.

Mr Godil, Zafar Beg Bhittani and Asiya Nasir suggested that a special committee of parliament should be set up to ascertain whether a loan could be avoided and, if taken, whether its objectives would be achieved.

Captain (retd) Iftikhar Ali Rao of the economic affairs division said the loans were approved by the cabinet and admitted that in some cases the nation had to pay commitment charges without proper utilisation of the loans because the relevant projects were premature.

Mr Qureshi said the 18th amendment had empowered provincial governments to independently obtain foreign loans against their consolidated funds after clearance by the Council of Common Interests, provided they did not have outstanding loans payable to the federal government.

Mr Rao did not agree and said the provincial governments had not been empowered to issue sovereign guarantees for which they had to seek the federal government’s approval.

Mr Qureshi said that under article 167 of the Constitution, the federal government was required to issue guidelines on loans to the provinces and the CCI was to set annual ceilings for each province. However, this had not been done so far.

The committee members criticised the arrangement and said when a loan sought by a province was to be cleared by the CCI then it was wrong to suggest they were independent in negotiating loans. What would be the repercussions if a province went for bankruptcy, they said.

They alleged that in some cases representatives of the lending agencies persuaded government officials to procure loans that also benefited them but their costs were borne by common people.

The committee resolved to start formulating recommendations on foreign and domestic loans during its next meeting after consultation with independent economists.