Opposition stages walkout

Joint opposition staged walkout from the Senate over continuous interruption in proceedings by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi. Leader of the Opposition Senator Raza Rabbani while condemning the minister for repeated interruption during the opposition senators' statements said, "The behaviour of the parliamentary affairs minister is not good with the opposition senators." Later, Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad and Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar brought opposition back to the House.
Ilyas Bilour raised a question about the measures taken by the government to counter 40 percent increase in duty on Pakistani IRRI-6 rice by the Kenyan government.
Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar said that the customs duty on Pakistani products would end and bilateral talks with Nairobi were underway to rectify the situation. The commerce minister said that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have raised 35 percent to 75 percent customs duty on Pakistani rice as European Union has fixed 13 percent anti-dumping duty.
He said that talks are being held with the commerce ministers of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to reduce customs duty on the rice and the Commerce Ministry is holding a consultation process with the shareholders so that a mechanism could be adopted to resolve the issue. He said that Pakistan would retaliate on the issue and the government would also raise the duty on tea imported from Kenya if the issue was not resolved.
Consultation procedure is under process with other countries also and the Commerce Ministry is hopeful that the customs duty on Pakistani products would be reduced soon, the commerce minister said. Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi said that Askari Board would be established like Aga Khan University.
To a question, the education minister said that teachers will not be sent abroad for training, but they would be trained in the country.
He said that the USAID has allocated a grant of Rs 27.5 million for the financial year 2004-05 and the grant would be spent on education sector reform assistance programme. The USAID grant will also be spent on Pakistan teacher education and professional development programme and developing information communication and technology resource centres, scholarship programme for under-graduate and graduate students and Higher Education Commission.