LAHORE, Dec 11: The opposition parties have presented their comprehensive point of view on the terms of reference of the parliamentary committee set up to deal with the post-earthquake situation. The opposition welcomes some of the terms while expresses reservations about others.

A copy of the opposition’s letter sent to the ruling party was acquired by Dawn.

The following is the text after the opening paragraph.

“The assurance that the government wishes to address concerns about parliamentary supremacy, transparency and accountability in the rehabilitation and reconstruction work is welcome. However, we believe that the terms of reference (TOR) of the government fail to address these concerns that need to be clarified and concretized.

“The assurance of ‘supremacy and financial accountability by the parliament’ as given in item no. 3 fails to address either the most basic concern namely ‘ensuring civilian supremacy in reconstruction structures’ or ‘financial accountability through the parliament’ as urged by the opposition.

“It is imperative that all reconstruction bodies are headed by civilians to ensure their accountability through existing accountability mechanisms. It must be pointed out that serving military officers are excluded from the ambit of NAB and having a serving military officer as head of the reconstruction body ipso facto exempts it from accountability. It is also important from the point of view to halting the growing militarization of civil society and civil functions.

“The assurance of ensuring ‘financial accountability by the parliament’ is vague and needs to be concretized with a formal assurance that ‘the reports of the proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee along with the budgetary statements of ERRA, FRC, and the President’s Relief Fund be placed on a quarterly basis before parliament, after consideration by the committee.’

“Furthermore, the assurance to present a bill to the parliament addressing these concerns is not time bound. In view of the urgency of the tasks involved the shortest possible time frame needs to be given to formalize the reconstruction efforts through an Act of the Parliament.

“The assurance to ‘welcome any suggestion aimed at improving the functioning of reconstruction structures’ as given in item no. 4 does not address the concern namely the powers of the committee ‘to review, revise and recommend amendments to decisions taken thus far.’

“There is a sea of difference between making suggestions that may be ignored by the government with impunity and the powers to review, revise and recommend amendments to the decisions taken. The reconstruction is a huge and critical task that cannot be left to an administrative body alone without parliament having the powers to review and revise those plans.

“We understand that in a parliamentary system Parliamentary Committees do not make executive appointments but it must also be appreciated that in such a system the committees do have powers to approve and confirm executive appointments. While the appointments may continue to be made by the executive it is important that appointments made are subject to confirmation and approval by the Parliamentary Committee. This is an accepted practice and a tradition in democracies throughout the world.

“In conclusion we hope that the government will respond in a prompt and positive manner in view of the urgency of the natural calamity that has befallen our country.”