ISLAMABAD: The legislation under which the Privatisa­tion Commission (PC) was formed was called into question for being flawed and ambiguous during the meeting of a Senate committee on Tuesday.

The secretary of Privati­sation Commission who appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation candidly admitted that there were ambiguities in the legislation, prompting the committee to ask the government to revisit the existing privatisation legislation to address the serious flaws.

The issue came during the discussion on a petition against some regulations of the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000, as well as examination of the rule about valuation of property taken up by Senate Com­mittee on Delegated Legislation.

The meeting presided over by Senator Taj Hadier was attended by senators Javed Abbasi, Daud Khan Achakzai, Kulsoom Perveen and Farhatullah Babar besides some senior officials.

During discussion on distribution of powers between the chairman, the Priva­tisation Commission and the board, Senator Farhatullah Babar pointed out that there were ambiguities in the Privatisation Ordinance. It was silent as to who were members of the Commission and how it was constituted, he said. After some discussion the com­mittee decided that the privatisation legislation be revisited.

Senator Babar while talking to Dawn after the meeting said it was also not clear in the legislation as to who was to appoint the members on the commission. He said the petition received by the committee assailed regulation 3, 9 and 14 of the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000, for being ultra vires of the basic ordinance.

The last agenda item on Rules under the National Command Authority Act was postponed as the defence secretary did not appear before the committee.

The committee’s chairman informed the meeting that late last night the defence secretary called him and the Senate chairman asking to postpone the meeting because he was busy.

Earlier the defence ministry had requested in-camera discussion to which both he and the mover had agreed. He then invited the committee members for comments.

The mover, Senator Babar, said that transparency based on open discussion was a critical function of a parliamentary committee. The NCA Act, 2010, was also passed through an open public parliamentary debate. Subordi­nate legislation thus should also be open. The Senate chairman has also given a ruling regulating procedure to place sensitive information before Parliament, he said.

Even then the committee agreed to in-camera discussion and yet the defence secretary had not come, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018