Shaukat under fire in Senate

Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz came under fire in Senate on Monday as a treasury senator registered FIR against him for ignoring a unanimous resolution of the house to contain the oil prices at a reasonable level.
"Shaukat Aziz had no stake in this country. He had come to rule and ruin this country," said ANP senator Ilyas Bilour in Senate. He said he was not prepared to accept Musharraf as President because he had dubbed parliamentarians "uncivilised."
He said that Shaukat had worked for the benefit of oil companies, which earned billions due to protection provided to them by the previous government. "Aziz also worked for the benefit of stock brokers," he added. He said that that in 2005, this house had passed a unanimous resolution which called for halting the oil companies from making hefty profits at the cost of the consumers. "But, the former government ignored this very important resolution," he added, while PML-Q senators largely remained silent. "With the current price mechanism, the nation has to pay an amount of Rs 20 per year additionally to the oil companies," the senator said amid applause from treasury benches.
Coming to budget issues, he urged the government not to delay enhancement of capital value tax (CVT) and levy of capital gain tax (CGT) on stock markets as these are the two potential areas for giving extra revenues to the government.
He asked the senators from Punjab not to look at Kalabagh dam only in perspective of the central province. "If we go with the growth figures in the last eight years, the overall growth was recorded at over 40 percent. Despite this tremendous growth, there was no trickle-down effect," he added.
Nisar Memon, of PML-Q, said that the budget had been prepared brilliantly despite the fact that the government was facing severe hardships, especially from one province which patronised lawyers' long march while the ruling party was preparing the budget. He appreciated continuation of some of the mega projects initiated by the previous government. "It would have been better if the government had referred the budget to the committees of the parliament for scrutiny," he said, calling for following this mechanism in the years to come.
Yasmin Shah, of PML-Q, said that there was need to invest heavily in water sector so that agriculture productivity could be enhanced. She lamented that less water was available in Sindh for agriculture.
Dr Abdul Malik, of National Party, said that political stability was must for economic stability. The PPP government, he sail, was lagging behind on political front, as political reconciliation was yet to take off in Balochistan. "Young men are still being kidnapped," she said.
She said that Baloch were demanding share from Balochistan mineral resources. She said that the people of the province were against the ports being in the jurisdiction of federal government. She asked the government to compensate 25,000 affectees of Mirani dam, who are presently living in tents.