Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan Thursday said that the government is ready to present the names of both NRO beneficiaries and those whose loans were written off in the Parliament. The Minister said this on the floor of House while responding to supplementary questions raised by Khawaja Asif of PML-N and Nadeem Afzal Chan of PPP during Question Hour session of the National Assembly.
He said that the accountability should be across the board so as to satisfy both opposition and treasury. He said that it is the first coalition government which offered itself for accountability. The Minister said that the government is also ready to present the list of those people who accumulated wealth and fled form Pakistan with all pockets filled.
"A crime is a crime whether it was committed yesterday, today or tomorrow. Details of all those who were involved in looting the wealth of the nation would be presented in the House," Babar said. Khawaja Muhammad Asif said that the list of names of those whose loans were written off by the State Bank of Pakistan during the tenure of General Musharraf (Retd) would also be presented in the National Assembly.
Nadeem Afzal Chan on a point of order said that the names of those whose loans were written off should also be presented in the House. In the regard, he demanded of the Speaker to constitute a parliamentary committee to discuss the names of all corrupt people whose loans were written off. Abdul Qadir Khanzada of MQM also supported the demand of Nadeem Afzal Chan and said that a committee should be establish to take up the list of persons who looted the national wealth.
Faisal Saleh Hayat, Parliamentary Leader of PML-Q, said that there was no need of committee because referring to committee is the technique to delay the matter. He said that if the information is available to ministries then the list of names could be presented in the current session before adjournment. He said that the list should be debated in the House.
He said that the government talked about accountability, though it has not formed any mechanism or law for the accountability. He added that the government already has abolished the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). He also showed the stories published in daily newspapers about corruption and wants reply of the government on it. He said that his party had submitted an adjournment motion on corruption but it was killed by the Speaker.
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources told the House that the politicians are being targeted through media trial in the past and same practice is being repeated once again. He claimed that some stories were planted for specific purpose. We should play our role to protect the democratic institutions. The country needs clean policy and good governance. We are in the favour of accountability," he said.