Naeemul Haq Warns Opposition To Protest Within Ambit Of Law

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs, Naeem-ul-Haq on Tuesday warned the opposition in the parliament to lodge their protest while remaining within the ambit, otherwise law would take its due course

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Jun, 2019 ) :Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs, Naeem-ul-Haq on Tuesday warned the opposition in the parliament to lodge their protest while remaining within the ambit, otherwise law would take its due course.

He was briefing media persons here at PTI Secretariat, where PTI's new President (Punjab) Ejaz Chaudhry and other party leaders also accompanied him.

Naeemul Haq explained that National Assembly (NA) had 38 standing committees, which had crucial role in the legislation.

The opposition had assured the government of extending cooperation in running the house business/legislation process, if it was given chairmanship of these committees as well as Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) Chairmanship to NA Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif.

Agreeing with the opposition demands, the PTI's government had retained chairmanship of 20 committees only and the rest 18 were being headed by the opposition, besides giving PAC chairmanship to Shehbaz Sharif despite all contentions.

Deviating from its agreement, the opposition continued with its bad intentions and resorted to disrupt National Assembly's business and personal attacks on the PTI leadership during the presentation of the Federal Budget 2019-20 in the National Assembly, which was in no way tolerable.

The opposition's bad behavior was an attempt to divert the public attention from their past corruption, he opined.

Naeemul Haq disclosed that according to audit documents available with them, there was no rendering of Rs 3 to 5 trillion out of Rs 24 trillion loans taken by two previous governments of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led by Nawaz Sharif during their respective terms of five-years each.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had rightly announced the formation of a high-powered commission to investigate accumulation of huge loans during the last 10-years, keeping in view the current economic challenges caused by the past rulers' corruption.

He added that National Accountability Bureaue (NAB) Vice Chairman Hussain Asghar would head the commission, while its members were yet to be decided.

He further said the government was committed to not only expose the corruption and plundering of all those who had put the country under heavy debt burden, but also take them to task and help recover the hard-earned money of the people from those looters and plunderers.

About Maryum Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's threats of not letting the budget to approve by the parliament, he warned both to protest but within the ambit of law, adding the government had required strength in the National Assembly to get the Federal Budget 2019-20 approved.

To a question, Naeemul Haq ruled out any rift between the government and their allied parties in the center and Punjab, citing that PTI had very cordial relations with PML-Q and BNP (Balochistan National Party) and the PTI had accepted all the six demands of the BNP including formation of a commission on the missing persons.

He also offered that government was ready to sign the Code of Conduct and the opposition should also sign it for smooth parliamentary proceeding, besides giving its positive input in the legislation process for the public good and country's development.

Naeemul Haq said the PTI government presented a public welfare budget having lofty allocations for the poor, citing that apart from provinces, the federal government also allocated Rs 152 billion under "Ehsas Programme" consisting of ten various schemes aimed at poverty alleviation. Under "Sehat Insaf Card", he mentioned, the poor would get medical facilities worth up to Rs 750,000 annually and so far 4.7 million cards had been distributed.

Naeemul Haq said Prime Minister Imran Khan had also reduced his expenditures to Rs 350 million from Rs 520 million, and PTI was not taking a penny from the national exchequer for PM's office at Banni Gala.

The prime minister, he added, would stay in the Pakistani Ambassador's house during his visit to America to attend the UN General Assembly Session.

About foreign relations, he said Russia had agreed to enhance its economic cooperation and investment in Pakistan, while Qatar was also going to invest US $ 20 billion in various sectors in Pakistan.