Demanding of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to step down after the scrapping of the Pakistan Steel Mills privatisation, the opposition in the Senate on Tuesday proposed summoning of the parliament's special sitting to take up the Council of Common Interest (CCI) decision approving the privatisation process.
Opening the debate after parliament affairs minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi moved a motion for suspension of rules, as the house resumed business after the two-day break with almost two hours delay, opposition leader Raza Rabbani charged the Supreme Court judgement was an open FIR and indictment against Premier Aziz.
Rabbani's 'moot point' was that since the Prim Minister was the chairman of the cabinet committee on privatisation, after changing its composition, the main omissions and commissions were made by this panel; therefore, he was responsible for it.
He charged the bid to privatise the 'mother of all industries' was aimed at turning Pakistan into a consumer market, crippling the indigenous industry and creating international cartels to subjugate and make the motherland subservient to capitalism.
The opposition leader quoted the UN parameters while privatising the state assets, saying the best possible price should be given the priority to make the deal transparent. "Here the PSM was sold at a throwaway price despite the public outcry," he noted.
The senator argued the government was morally bound to summon a special sitting of both the houses of the parliament to take up the matter.
Apparently, the delay was because of the ruling coalition's meeting with President General Musharraf in the chair in Rawalpindi to review the post-judgement situation and to approve amendments in the Hudood laws.
Referring to the judgement's paragraphs and even pertinent lines, Rabbani spoke for more than 90 minutes, as treasury and opposition senators kept mum, except for occasional chants of 'shame', 'shame' by opposition members.
"General Musharraf took over discarding the traditional politicians to be corrupt, inept and incompetent. He introduced a new breed of politicians belonging to the elite of the elitist, belonging to the educated, multinationals and gave the nation a technocrat minister who wanted to run Pakistan on the style of Citibank," opposition leader charged.
Despite rulers' claims that higher echelons of the government were not corrupt, the sugar, cement, Habib Bank, black cabs, railway engines, railway golf course and giving land to Mercedes firm rocked the nation, Rabbani pointed out.
The senator said financial advisers, City group, prepared the valuation report on the basis of details submitted by AF Ferguson, CORUS and ORR, Dignam and Company without independent exercise vis-à-vis accounting, taxes, etc, and not taking into account other aspects of the matter.
"It is admitted these were prepared on historical values of the mills' assets: according to the book value that is always based on the price of the unit minus the depreciation allowance," he contended.
He also referred to no accounting for the value of land. The inventories' value admitted before the court was not less than Rs 12 billion. Similarly, Rs 1 billion refund tax would not have been received by the bidder, following the issuance of letter of acceptance.
"The profile of mills' in advertisements did not mention incentives and concessions extended to the successful bidder."
Likewise, the land value was not added in calculating the share price, Rabbani said, the CCoP did not pay heed to the privatisation board proposal on inclusion of the value of total assets and also per share price worked out by it.
Substantiating his viewpoint why the Prime Minister should resign, he said he did not exercise his powers to avert omissions, commissions and also misused his powers to give undue concessions to the bidder, who was one of his friends, Arif Habib.
Referring to various dictionaries, he said omissions, commissions and misuse of authority fell in the category of corruption and, hence, was a criminal act which, according to the NAB Ordinance, liable to be investigated and prosecuted, if anyone found guilty of that.
About the auditor general's submission in the judgement that the court might not enter into controversial aspects of the deal, Rabbani said it also directly indicated he favoured investigation into it.
The senator added the auditor general also conceded the CCoP adopted somewhat convoluted procedure and twisted the process of sell-off.
He pointed out the government was going to pay much more than it was to receive the price for the mills.
Ports and shipping minister Babar Khan Ghauri was the second speaker, who brushed aside Rabbani's allegations against the Prime Minister and maintained the court did not mention even a single word of corruption in the judgement.
"The court has given its verdict on technical basis and we accepted it. The Prime Minister's hands are clean; therefore, he was the chief guest at the World Judicial Conference," he said.
Had the Prime Minister any role in any kind of irregularity or corruption, the apex court would not have made him the chief guest.
He defended the mills going to Arif Habib, who was Prime Minister's friend and had 20 percent share in the deal, saying was it wrong to prefer a Pakistan over an outsider.
The minister believed the formula of discounted cash flow was also followed in India and there was nothing wrong in it.
Earlier, education minister Javed Ashraf Qazi, who was earlier railways minister, outrightly rejected allegations of kickbacks in the Chinese locomotives and bogies deals.
He said not only the Lahore Court but also the National Accountability Bureau had declared that there was no element of corruption in the matter.
The house will resume debate on Wednesday at 10:00am.
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