ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties boycotted a major part of the National Assembly sitting on Tuesday on the second successive day of their combined protest against a spate of new taxes imposed by the government outside the budget for the current financial year.

Leader of the Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s two-year-old government of showing disrespect to parliament that saved it from a possible collapse last year in the face of protest sit-ins by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek and acting against poor people’s interests. He said the opposition would continue similar protests if a series of increases in General Sales Tax (GST) on falling prices of petroleum products and the latest taxes imposed on hundreds of importable goods were not brought to the house for approval.

All opposition parties staged a token walkout from the house on Monday to protest against GST increases by the government to 27 per cent from 17pc on petroleum products in recent weeks that deprived domestic consumers of a full benefit of sinking oil prices in the international market.

They were more furious on Tuesday over a reported government decision unveiled on Monday to tax more than 285 importable items, including furnace oil used in power generation, and an increase in tax rates on all services after an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

“The government must withdraw all these things and bring them here (for approval),” Mr Shah said during a hard-hitting speech in which he challenged the prime minister, who was not present in the house, to “become lion” in deference to his election symbol of lion, and “break the begging bowl” of dependence on foreign aid as his PML-N had vowed in the election campaign in 2013.

In a reference to two resolutions that were bulldozed though the house on Monday to extend the life of as many ordinances relating to local government elections for another 120 days, he also asked the government to “bring back what you did not yesterday”.

The opposition parties had assured the government to help it get both drafts through both houses of parliament if it, instead, brought them in the form of bills.

As he said in his speech in the house on the previous day, when he also threatened to go to court against out-of-parliament taxation, the opposition leader reminded the government of how parliament stood behind it while six months of protest sit-ins outside the parliament house from mid-August sought to topple it.

“(Now) you don’t make this assembly a debating club and redundant,” Mr Shah said.

After a speech of endorsement by Abdul Rashid Godail of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, all opposition lawmakers stormed out of the house, leaving the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, to recall before only a sparsely attended house perceived achievements of the PML-N’s previous two governments ranging from the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway to the 1998 nuclear tests and predicting an “economic revolution” under its present term.

On what was a private members’ day, four private bills were introduced in the house earlier by their authors, to be examined by relevant standing committees, after the government raised no objection to their introduction.

A constitution amendment bill of Maulana Ameer Zaman of the government-allied JUI-F stood rejected in a rare situation of its kind when it had some supporters and no opponent.

An amendment to the Constitution must be supported by at least 228 members, or two-thirds of the 342-seat house. But only eight JUI-F members stood up in favour of the bill seeking the establishment of a high court bench at Loralai town of Balochistan, and none against it.

Yet Maulana Zaman blamed his helplessness on the ruling party, rather than his apparent ignorance of the Constitution, and announced a walkout by his own party.

But that action could not materialise as a PML-N member, Bilal Virk, pointed out lack of quorum, forcing Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi, after a count, to adjourn the house until 11am on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2015

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