Holding itself accountable: K-P govt decides to appoint speaker as PAC chief

Demands from opposition leaders for accountability slot rebuffed

PESHAWAR: The provincial government has rejected demands from the opposition parties of giving them control of the chief parliamentary fiscal oversight committee.

Instead, the provincial assembly speaker has been handed the key oversight slot.

During a meeting between Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, K-P Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani and parliamentary leaders of opposition parties — led by Leader of the Opposition in the K-P Assembly Akram Khan Durrani — the latter had demanded that they should be given control of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the provincial assembly as per parliamentary tradition.

The opposition parties pointed out that as per tradition, the chairman of the PAC in both the national and provincial assemblies is the leader of the opposition while the opposition parties are given representation in it based on their parliamentary strength to hold the government in check.

They further argued that since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was in power during K-P’s last government and that the party now holds a stronger two-thirds majority, it cannot be expected to hold itself accountable.

However, the chief minister and assembly speaker pointed out that there was no such provision in the K-P assembly rules which stipulated that the leader of the opposition has to be handed the position.

Instead, they noted that the rules stated that the K-P assembly speaker would hold the slot.

However, the opposition parties were assured that their members will be given chairmanship of standing committees of the assembly in areas where the opposition members are in majority.

During the meeting, the matter of dividing developmental funds per the 70:30 representational formula between government and the opposition was also discussed.

The opposition leaders, however, called for raising their representation in the divisible pool of development funds. Instead of conceding or rejecting, the government decided to keep a line of communication open for further dialogue apart from provisionally agreeing to grant them developmental funds as per their representation size.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2018.