Negotiations with IMF: Sherry Rehman slams government for not sharing details with Parliament

The government came under severe criticism in the Senate on Friday for keeping the Parliament aloof from negotiations being held with International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the decision to impose over Rs 160 billion more taxes on the masses.
Speaking on a point of public importance, PPP Parliamentary Leader in the House, Senator Sherry Rehman questioned the government's negotiations with the IMF team.
Sherry noted that talks are being held with the government functionaries and regulatory bodies here. She made it clear that the opposition reserves the right to question and the government should answer to it.
"The whole world is talking about the terms of negotiations between the government and IMF and these are being made headlines in national newspapers. The rupee is falling and current account deficit has widened by 34 percent, and today we heard that over Rs 160 billion taxes are being levied on public," she pointed out.
She said she has submitted two calling attention notices and one adjournment motion on the IMF issue, but nothing was communicated in writing to her.
"I can be wrong but we were informally told that the IMF team is in the town and the terms were not settled yet. This has never happened in the past even when the IMF teams were visiting. Why can we not talk on this urgent and critical matter openly in the Senate?" she wondered. A healthy discussion, she maintained, can lead to fruitful recommendations for the government in this connection.
She urged Deputy Chairman Saleem Mandviwalla to consider her calling attention notices and the adjournment motion. The chair promised to consider them.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Azam Swati said the IMF team, which is currently visiting the country, is busy in meeting the top government officials. "At the moment nothing has been finalised and once things are done, we will take the House into confidence and now it's too early to say anything about the talks with IMF team," he pointed out.
Earlier, during the question hour, Minister for Climate Change Zartaj Gul informed the House that out of Pakistan's total 88.41 million hectares area, forest area is 4.55 percent while forest area (national) was 5.1 percent, as per a comprehensive study conducted by the Pakistan Forest Institute, Peshawar in 2012.
She noted that an additional area of 0.348 million hectares was restored/enriched under the Billion Tree Tsunami project, implemented in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that increased the land under forest.
The minister explained that there would be no need to hide behind the 18th Amendment, after the government had summoned the meeting of Council of Common Interests, inviting the provincial ministers for forest, forest board representatives and district forest officers to work on a nationwide mechanism on afforestation.
The federal government and provinces, she noted, would contribute 50 percent each to replicate the model of Billion Tree Tsunami project across Pakistan. The prime minister had already inaugurated the project by planting a sapling on September 02, 2018.
Replying to a query, she claimed that Pakistan is no more on the list of countries facing threat of acute pollution after the success of Billion Tree Tsunami project. Pakistan was ousted of the list in 2017-2018.
Ex-minister for climate change Senator Mushahid Ullah challenged her to state how much was the impact of tree project on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's temperature, pointing out that temperature had come down by 4 percent in Iran after it had successfully grown 220 million trees.
To a question by Senator Sirajul Haq of Jamaat-e-Islami, Minister for Information Technology Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the amount of revenue collected by four mobile companies from their consumers was Rs 318.82 billion in 2015, Rs 365.48 billion in 2016 and Rs 412.28 billion in 2017.
Terming the killing of police officer of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Afghanistan an attack on the state of Pakistan, State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said it must not be politicised.
Responding to a point raised by Awami National Party (ANP) Senator Sitara Ayaz to share the details of the inquiry report of SP Tahir Khan's killing, he said the inquiry is yet to be completed as the law enforcement agencies are investigating the matter.
"... The interior minister will take the House into confidence once the inquiry is completed as we are probing into the matter," he maintained.
The House was adjourned sine die.