ISLAMABAD, June 16: An uproar was witnessed in the evening session of the National Assembly on Wednesday as the opposition leaders pointed fingers at the president and accused the government of robbing the national exchequer through financial manoeuverings.

MNA Anwar Bhutto of Peoples Party Parliamentarians alleged that President Gen Musharraf had a plot in Lahore worth Rs20 million allocated to him at a throwaway price of Rs200,000. This provoked the treasury benches and many rose up to defend the president.

Parliamentary secretary for finance Umer Ayub said it was not appropriate to level allegations against the president when he was not present to defend himself. The PPP MNA, Anwar Bhutto, also claimed that many military officers were allotted land at dirt cheap prices of just Rs45 per Kanal against the market value of thousands of rupees per Kanal in the Punjab.

However, the situation was averted from turning into a free- for-all as the call for prayers provided the speaker an opportunity to adjourn the house. When the House resumed its proceedings, Khawaja Mohammad Asif of the PML-N, in a hard-hitting speech, said the finance minister should inform the House about the beneficiaries of Rs25 billion loss suffered by the national exchequer as it purchased dollars worth Rs15 billion from the open market.

MNA Asif claimed that the government had written off loans worth Rs23 billion during the last four years, while the small farmers were put behind bars for small loan defaults.

He said the State Bank of Pakistan had favoured the influential, some of them sitting in the House, by issuing a circular (BPD-29) in October 2002 to help write off the loans. He claimed that Rs1.63 billion were written off as bad debts while only Rs328 million were recovered in an instance.

MNA Asif said the total amount of bad loans now stood at Rs261 billion. He claimed that Attiya Inayatullah was a defaulter to the tune of Rs1.2 million when she changed loyalties from Nawaz Sharif to be inducted in the National Security Council of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

On a point of personal explanation, Attiya Inayatullah claimed she was never an account holder of HBL while Khawaja Asif claimed he had documentary evidence to the effect.