FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

If walkout from the house means a victory that the opposition in the Senate pocketed Thursday evening, it can be said by dint of sheer brute majority the government had it within the whisker of success the same evening. The issue was whether the government hands were clean when it placed the order for three hundred thousand tents with the private sector.
No, the PPPP's Abdullah Riar had contended a day before, bringing textile minister Mushtaq Cheema to the floor next day. The deal is transparent, best under the circumstances and could not be delayed given the severity of situation.
He made a convincing case, but, Riar, a medico by profession, exhibited such an astounding knowledge of tent trade that his words acquired intense credibility to his insinuation that the minister's hands were tainted.
As soon as the question hour was over, Cheema got up to defend the tent deal, which involves something like two billion rupees. He said the government promptly initiated action on many fronts to secure tents in large numbers and without loss of time. These included waiver of import duty; ban on export; opening of door for Indian tents; and allocation of a huge sum of Rs 2.3 billion for their purchase.
The minister, who conducted negotiations with tent manufactures, admitted instead of canvass it was decided that these tents would be made of drill cloth and price offered to manufactures was Rs6,500 per piece, twice more than the prevailing market price, and there was no tendering as such. All these compromises were inescapable given the time constraint.
Abdullah Riar now returned to attack.
If the minister is right than why did the government stop the UNHCR from buying 30,000 tents?, why did it go for drill cloth when the country has the capacity to manufacture one a million canvass tents?, why there was no tendering?, why the normal specification standards that govern the army purchase of tents was ignored?, Riar asked.
That brought leader of the opposition on his feet with an observation and seven questions. How does the minister justify ordering drill cloth tents when he (minister) himself says Pakistan meets 70 percent of the world requirement of tents?, and if drill cloth tents are better than that of the canvass than why Pakistan's export is of the canvass tents?, Raza Rabbani asked. Then he asked the minister to tell who decided that the standard of ordered tents should be compromised.
As the debate on tents gathered momentum, treasury member Ahmad Ali joined the fray asking Mushtaq Cheema: is drill cloth tent waterproof?, do we export such tents?, and is the standard being maintained? "There is something wrong somewhere," he concluded to some chagrin of his colleagues. Hidayatullah Shah of the MMA was rather blunt: the official handling priced tents out of the purchasing capacity of NGOs, and that the very first rain caused leaking of the government supplied tents. But the minister was on his feet for the third time to defend the contract. Time was the essence and that guided decision-making. For maintaining quality, provincial officials and armed forces will jointly inspect the product.
The minister's argument that standards were compromised in the face of time constraint is a weak defence, asserted Raza Rabbani, adding the national press has accused the minister of having "pecuniary interest" in the tent deal. The matter should be further investigated for which he asked the chair to refer it to the finance committee of the Senate. But leader of the house Wasim Sajjad turned down Raza Rabbani's plea, arguing the decision was taken under immense pressure of time constraint. Rabbani returned to remark that refusal to refer the matter to the committee smacks of a "cover-up". Professor Khurshid Ahmad added his weight to Rabbani's plea by contending the matter being serious it should be further investigated.
Seeing the opposition has cornered their colleague, other ministers came to Cheema's rescue. Health minister Nasir Khan denied the possibility of a cover-up; law minister Wasi Zafar contended the deal is hundred percent transparent but the opposition wanted the deal to be scuttled; education minister General Ashraf Qazi (Retd) said tents used by Pakistan army even in Azad Kashmir are made of cloth. Meanwhile, the government whip set about ensuring attendance of treasury members to defeat the opposition move in a vote on the floor of the house. Meanwhile, Wasim Sajjad made a subtle move: if the opposition withdraws its allegation against the minister and offers apology, the government would support its contention that the matter should go to the finance committee. If withdrawal of allegation is the condition for referral, Rabbani said, he was ready to do that.
But there has to be an apology, too, Wasim Sajjad insisted.
Alright if that is the impasse let the opposition move the issue for vote, the chairman suggested. By then the opposition had started leaving the house as on a walkout. That brought the proceedings to an end for the day. May be the same issue surfaces in the Senate on Friday - the day before donors' conference. May be some look at it as part of a democratic system but certainly others would ask for the audit of donations, both domestic and foreign.