Fawad comes hard on Achakzai in Senate

ISLAMABAD: Walkouts and war of words marred the Senate proceedings again on Wednesday, as Information and Broadcasting Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain urged Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to form a House Committee to look into 5000 fake accounts traced by the government.

The minister, later urged the chairman to form a parliamentary committee to probe alleged embezzlement of Rs42 trillion development funds given to Balochistan government during the last ten years.

The proposal came when senators belonging to Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) protested the slow pace of work and use of substandard materials in Quetta airport expansion work: a project, which began in 2015 during the then PML-N government. Senators Usman Kakar, Sardar Azam Musakhel along with Kabir Shahi of the National Party drew attention of the government towards slow pace of work at Quetta airport through a calling attention notice. They said that the project that was supposed to be completed in 2017 was being delayed.

They decried the way Balochistan was being treated and that Quetta airport lacked many facilities while flights to Saudi Arabia and UAE had been stopped for unknown reasons.

Responding to the notice, the minister for parliamentary affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said that PkMAP remained an ally of the previous PML-N government for five years, but they never bothered to question their allies for the delay. This infuriated the PkMAP senators, who shouted at the minister not to say anything against the previous government and instead focus on the delay.

This prompted the information minister to say that Rs42 trillion had been given to Balochistan for the uplift of the province, but why no development took place.

“Mehmood Khan Achakzai had appointed his brother as governor of the province and had made the whole government his slave and now is giving us lecturers…stop it, you’ve no right to talk, just sit down,” blasted the minister.

“In which capacity these people are talking as these are the people who are responsible for the backwardness of the province. There should be a committee comprising members of the Senate to probe economic terrorism committed by Achakzais and Co,” he asserted.

The Senate chairman said that he would announce a committee after consulting Leader of the House, Opposition Leader in the Senate and the National Assembly Speaker to probe the ‘economic embezzlement’ with regard to Rs42 trillion development funds.

After the minister kept pressing that Achakzais of Balochistan, whose party remained coalition partner of previous PML-N government from 2013 to 2018, were the reasons for the delay of uplift projects and backwardness of the area, the opposition senators staged a walkout in protest.

They did not return to the House despite requests by Leader of the House Shibli Faraz, PTI Senator Faisal Javed, and Minister for Privatisation Muhammad Mian Soomro, forcing the chair to adjourn the House.

Earlier, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani tried to calm down the minister and said that the minister should desist from using unparliamentary language and cautioned him not to spoil the House environment. He added more responsibility lay on the government in terms of running the House and it should therefore, be more patient.

“Everything is alright, if we do not talk about the corruption of these protesting senators but the moment we say something about their corruption, they start agitating. We will expose whoever is involved in plundering the national wealth no matter what…,” the minister asserted at one time.

After the question hour, the minister was on his feet to respond to the allegations hurled at him in his absence by PML-N Senator Mushahidullah Khan on Monday in the House. However, the chair did not appear to allow him to speak.

The minister questioned if running the House smoothly was the responsibility only of the government and said that he wanted to bring it into the notice of leader of the opposition that they would not be silent on the way opposition would use language against prime minister and others.

“You allow them to speak freely and show strictness to me. I call on Leader of Opposition that either Mushahidullah or his party should apologise to me,” he said. The PML-N senator was not present in the Senate at that time.

Leader of Opposition Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq rose to contend that the matter should be resolved and it was improper to press an issue. This prompted Fawad to refer to a case in the Supreme Court and during hearing it was reported that they (PML-N government) sold land, belonging to Saint Baba Farid Ganjshakar.

To this, the chair reminded the minister that the matter was sub-judice, advising the minister not to spoil the environment in the House. “You ask us to apologise and we do that but you don’t say so to them,” the minister said.

He wondered why the House environment got disturbed, when he would talk about corruption and the 5,000 fake accounts of Pakistanis traced recently through which money laundering was done and asked if they should not talk about that corruption.

“This is unfair to Pakistan. Please Mr Chairman, constitute a House Committee to probe these accounts. Why the opposition does not want that these matters should be discussed here in the Parliament,” the minister said amid protest by the opposition senators while his mic was switched off.

The chair asked the government to brief the House about the issue of SP Tahir Dawar on Thursday, after the opposition agitated on not being informed the factual opposition, as the social media had reports of his assassination and that his body had been received by Pakistan’s Consulate in Jalalabad.

He gave this ruling after Fawad agreed with the opposition that the matter about the serving officer was very important but said the Secretary Interior had informed that reports regarding the officer were yet to be confirmed. He promised to let the House know on receiving authenticated reports.

Opposition protested when he offered PPP Senator Sherry Rehman and JI’s Mushtaq Ahmad to join the investigation, if they had more information than the government. Senator Mushtaq alleged that the information was being concealed. Leader of Opposition clarified that the issue pertained not to the interior, as it happened in another country and that the photos of his tortured body were also available on social media.

Earlier, Raja Zafar said the issue of a state functionary, who was in uniform and went missing, was raised in the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier in the day but there was no response from the government.

Senator Sherry said that the matter was very strange and of great concern that a serving SP’s body was collected by Pakistani Consulate, who was handling several cases of terrorism while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Senate panel that they had no information about that. The responsibility of his killing was claimed by Khorasani in Afghanistan.

Referring to slain officer’s pictures, she said it was a matter of grave concern and that the government should give statement in the House on this issue.