Punjab tussle: Final round of talks inconclusive

Government and PML-N teams met to analyse progress on the 10-point reforms agenda.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) held the final round of talks in Islamabad on Tuesday.

This round of talks comes in the wake of several days of hostilities between the two parties.

PPP’s economic team met the PML-N delegation and discussed the PML-N’s 10-point agenda to improve Pakistan’s economy.

The PPP has summoned a meeting of its Punjab ministers in Islamabad on Thursday while the PML-N has summoned a meeting of its leaders on Friday.

IMF defers talks

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday deferred talks with Pakistan for a standby loan arrangement programme until the talks between the PML-N and the government conclude.

Negotiations between Pakistan and IMF team were due to be held in Dubai on today but IMF officials asked Pakistan to defer the talks at the last moment.

The reason for the delay is that the IMF thinks the talks are essential in context to the terms of the standby loan arrangement.

IMF's country head for Pakistan, Paul Ross, said the time and place of the talks is yet to be finalised.

Updated from print edition (below)

Final meeting today: Frantic efforts to appease PML-N, buy more time

In what is being considered a ‘decisive’ meeting, the government and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) teams will be facing each other here today (Tuesday) to analyse progress on the 10-point reforms agenda.

The fate of their coalition in Punjab, and their future relationship, hinges on the outcome of this meeting.

PML-N members insist it would be their last meeting with the government as the 45-day deadline for the implementation of its demands ends on February 24.

“There will be no extension in the deadline,” said PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rasheed when contacted by The Express Tribune. PML-N will subsequently hold a party meeting on February 25 to take a final decision, on the basis of Tuesday’s meeting with the government team, Rasheed added.

While the PML-N top leadership has indicated its willingness to kick out PPP from the coalition in Punjab, sources say the government is making frantic efforts to save the alliance. It has fielded some important interlocutors to convince PML-N leadership that the government is sincerely working on, and needs more time for, the implementation of the reforms agenda.

Sources say it is likely that the government will give timelines for the implementation of the remaining reforms, in order to buy more time.

Meanwhile a strong group within PML-N is advocating parting of ways with the PPP in Punjab and coming up as a vibrant opposition in the centre. The group has put in place a contingency plan whereby the ‘Unification Bloc,’ comprising dissident lawmakers from PML-Quaid, will be allotted seats in the provincial assembly, ensuring the PML-N does not lose its majority in Punjab after PPP’s departure from the coalition.

However sources within PML-N say the party is not willing to pitch a final showdown with the PPP, at least not in the centre, due to ‘political compulsions.’

In a last-ditch effort to lurethe parting PML-N, the government’s chief negotiator Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh held a private, ‘informal meeting’ with his counterpart Senator Ishaq Dar. Dar confirmed that the meeting took place but said it was private business.

“[Shaikh] met me informally and did not say anything about the implementation status of the 10-point agenda,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune.

The ten points:
Election commission reforms

Framing a new accountability law

Reduction in cabinet size

Implementation of Supreme Court decisions

Recovering of defaulted loans

Formulating an energy plan

Restructuring loss making public sector enterprises

Revising the formula for determining fuel prices

Thirty per cent cut in expenditure

Resolving chronic sugar crisis

Implementation status of reforms agenda Implemented

The government has trimmed the size of the cabinet to 21 federal ministers and one minister of state from 38 federal ministers, 18 ministers of states.

Partially implemented

Both sides have agreed to recover loans from 1,300 defaulters of 16 public financial institutions and banks but cannot go ahead with it because there is reportedly no law to recover the written off loans.

They have agreed to election commission reforms but have yet to notify a parliamentary committee for carrying these forward. The PPP and the PML-N agreed to form a Judicial Commission to probe sugar crisis but the commission has yet to hold a meeting.

Not implemented

The parties have not agreed on a unanimous draft of an accountability law. There is no progress on complete implementation of the Supreme Court decisions. They have not been able to formulate a plan to address the energy crisis or the restructuring of the 8 bleeding public sector enterprises. A 30 per cent cut on spending and a new formula to determine petroleum prices also remains elusive.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2011.