Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) on Monday demanded parliamentary investigation into three local firms' alleged involvement in 'food for oil' scam.
The joint opposition moved six adjournment motions against the 'hasty sell-off of Pakistan Steel Mills. The joint opposition again requested speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to issue production order of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and Saad Rafique and facilitate presence of Baloch MNA Abdul Rauf Mengal in the house.
Mengal, they believed, was being deliberately stopped from attending the session. PPPP lawmakers walked out of the house against what they called the National Accountability Bureau's bid to malign Benazir Bhutto and demanded its pack-up for continuous 'character assassination' of their leader.
The PPPP, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) filed six separate motions, seeking suspension of the routine business to debate the Steel Mills' hasty privatisation on throwaway prices. Opposition members would be speaking on the admissibility of motions on Wednesday.
Interestingly, ruling Pakistan Muslim League's minority MNA M.P. Bhandara also supported the PPPP demand that a house committee should investigate the 'food for oil' scandal. However, the chair gave no ruling on the proposal.
Earlier, PPPP's Sherry Rehman, Naheed Khan and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf flayed the NAB for witch hunt of politicians instead of performing its duty. They said the NAB had spent Rs 26 million on officers' foreign tours in one year.
"Like other fabricated cases such as PIA and KESC, nothing would be proved against Ms Bhutto in the food-for oil story." PPPP lawmakers demanded disbanding of the NAB. Sherry Rehman said the bureau was implicating PPPP leader in the UN programme. She demanded a thorough investigation into three local firms handling of business, ie, M/s A&A Services, BC International and Oil and Gas Services Group. The house must know who is behind these firms, she added.
These firms, she alleged, paid over $4 million in commission to deposed Saddam's regime to win nearly $5000 million contract. Sherry claimed Ms Bhutto had nothing to do with kickbacks.
Remarks against PPPP leaders and workers by population minister Shahbaz Hussain and Ali Akbar Vaince of PML generated a lot of heat in the house. Both sides traded allegations of being turncoat and disloyal to the party and late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's mission.
Members presence was thin from 11:40am to 2:45pm, as apparently, their interest in the assembly proceedings is withering away.
Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the NAB chairman had defied a directive to appear before a house committee to prove that bureau's accountability process was across-the-board and not selective.
Parliament affairs minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi rejected M.P. Bhandara's point of order during the zero-hour that election for the house finance committee members was yet to be held. The minister said members were elected through a laid down procedure. Bhandara had alleged the committee's functioning was illegal and unconstitutional.
MMA's MNA Bilqees, who recently visited Balochistan, urged the government to hold dialogue with Baloch nationalist leaders, saying by arresting Akbar Bugti or Attaullah Mengal, matters could not be settled in the province.
The house will now resume business Wednesday afternoon to initiate debate on price hike of essential commodities.