HYDERABAD, Oct 14: Opposition leader in Senate Raza Rabbani has demanded that a joint session of parliament be called to discuss problems being faced by people in the quake-hit areas and disaster mitigation plans by the government.

He also demanded that a committee of parliamentarians comprising both treasury and opposition be formed to oversee utilization of funds pouring in for help of earthquake-affected people in the NWFP and Azad Kashmir.

He was speaking to journalists at an Iftar dinner hosted by MPA Zahid Bhurgari here on Friday.

PPP Sindh president Syed Qaim Ali Shah also spoke on the occasion.

Mr Rabbani and Mr Shah arrived here to visit relief camps, established by Sindh People’s Youth and PPP city chapter in parts of the city.

The opposition leader demanded that the government should operate only one bank account in the State Bank which should accessible for scrutiny.

He paid tribute to the working class and members of the civil society for donating wholeheartedly for quake-affected people of the country.

He said that office-bearers of elected bodies of advocates, doctors, engineers and architects must be co-ordinated to identify areas, needing reconstruction.

He said that fair expenditure of money was most important factor.

He urged the government to show its open and clear cut commitment in respect of rehabilitation of quake-affected people and construction of hospitals, schools and houses.

He said the people had lost their relation with their homeland and they would be compelled to migrate.

He said under such circumstances it would again lead to a big trouble for government.

He said if the government managed to construct hospitals and schools for these people they would find it easy to rehabilitate them on their own.

Mr Rabbani called for a united struggle to make rehabilitation task easier.

He said that international agencies had described October 8 earthquake greater tragedy than tsunami which killed thousand of people along the Indian Ocean coast last year.

He said the disaster proved that government lacked capability of handling such crisis adding that our country had become a security state instead of a welfare one as envisaged by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

He said the tragedy had forced us to review our own follies and whether the government fared better in handling the situation.

He said the PPP had been collecting relief goods for people in the country for quake-affected people and relief goods had been sent off to them.

He said the PPP faced no difficulty in reaching to the areas because it had its own organization structure in Azad Kashmir where relief goods were being dispatched and distributed in an efficient manner.

About a joint campaign by the MMA and ARD against present government after Eidul Fitr, he said that all-parties leaders’ conference would decide its fate but he personally believed that it would have to be extended for some time given the magnitude of the crisis.

He said that as far as participation of NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani in the National Security Council was concerned it would also be taken up in conference because the ARD had rejected the NSC and its law from day one on the ground that it was ultra vires.

He said that the NSC had proved to be a bubble which could not prove its effectiveness in the present crisis.

He said that the ARD would not compromise on its principled stand and it was just a temporary ceasefire in wake of earthquake.

PPP Sindh chief Syed Qaim Ali Shah spoke of number of relief camps established by the PPP and trucks sent off to up country for affected people.

He asked the government to show its permanent plan for rehabilitation of affected people because so far the government had reached only a few areas which were affected by earthquake but reality was different.