ISLAMABAD: After months of delay, the government and the opposition agreed on a power-sharing formula for the composition of the standing committees of the lower house of parliament.

In a meeting chaired by NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq which was attended by chief whips of all parliamentary parties, both sides agreed to allocate the chairmanship of 26 committees to the government while 11 would go to the opposition.

As per the agreed formula, the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would be given to the opposition lawmaker and the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir would be headed by a treasury member. The NA Speaker would head the Business Advisory Committee of the House.

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The PAC would comprise 23 members – 16 from treasury benches and seven from the opposition.

However, the chairman PAC would be from the opposition for which, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed Sunni Ittehad Council(SIC) chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza, has been nominated by jailed PTI founding chief Imran Khan.

Following the new nomination, opposition lawmakers –Zain Qureshi, Sher Afzal Marwat, and SIC’s Hamid Raza met with the NA Speaker and discussed with him the formation of the house committees.

During that meeting, the opposition proposed the name of the SIC chief to the speaker for the post of PAC chairman. However, Ayaz Sadiq emphasised that the PAC chief would be elected according to the rules, as the speaker had no authority in that process.

“I simply want to resolve the issue of parliamentary committees with mutual understanding,” the speaker told the opposition delegation. Later, the delegation also met with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary leader Khawaja Asif, who, according to sources said he had no objection.

The sources said that Noor Alam of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) who had headed the PAC soon after the regime change operation through which Imran Khan was removed as prime minister, is also busy in intense lobbying to clinch the slot, but due to lack of strength, he is out from the race.

During the meeting which took place at NA Speaker’s chamber, the government’s 26 committee chairmanships would be distributed among the allies in the ruling coalition in accordance with their strength in the house.

The PML-N would retain the lion’s share of 14 chairmanships, while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would clinch eight chairmanships of standing committees.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024