PML-N should clarify Shehbaz’s PAC move: Qureshi

Minister says the decision not limited to party, affects parliamentary proceedings

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Friday that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif’s decision to quit as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman had not only come as a surprise to the government but left his own party confused as well.

Addressing a news conference, the minister demanded that the PML-N should provide an explanation for the “change of guard” as it affected parliamentary proceedings.

“Although it’s the PML-N’s internal matter, but such decisions concern the parliament and not just limited to the party. This creates problems for all of us,” he remarked.

The minister said it had been decided that the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly would head the PAC.
“The PML-N should explain to us as to why we should now accept [PML-N leader] Rana Tanveer as the new PAC chairman,” he added.
Qureshi pointed out that Shehbaz was a member of the parliamentary committee on national security as well and wondered if the PML-N president would attend its meetings now.

“The PML-N didn’t even inform its parliamentary party about the decision. Nobody knew anything except a ‘gang of four’,” he maintained.

“Even [PML-N leader] Raja Zafarul Haq says that he was unaware of the decision.”
A day earlier, Shehbaz decided to abandon the chairmanship of the parliament’s key accountability forum, the PAC.
The decision was made after Shehbaz held consultations with former prime minister and party supreme leader Nawaz Sharif.
Later, the party announced the nomination of MNA Rana Tanveer as the new PAC chairman.

Earlier, reports had surfaced that the PML-N planned to replace Rana Tanveer with former foreign minister Khawaja Asif as the PML-N’s new parliamentary leader.

Shehbaz was elected the PAC chairman in December 2018, after a four-month-long tussle between the treasury and opposition benches over the committee chairmanship. Earlier on October 5, 2018 Shehbaz was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with a housing scandal.

NAB later nominated the PML-N president in two more corruption references before his release from the accountability watchdog’s custody on order of the Lahore High Court on February 14.

Citing clash of interest, the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan did not want Shehbaz to head the PAC, the most powerful body of the parliament that makes decisions on the audit reports finalised by the department of the Auditor General of Pakistan.

However, the opposition parties, showing unusual unity had refused to break the parliamentary norm of appointing the leader of opposition as the PAC chairman.

Later, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had conceded to the opposition’s pressure but on the condition that special panels probing expenditures from the former PML-N government’s era would be headed by a member from the treasury bench.

Shehbaz is currently in London and is due to return on May 7. However, he has reportedly decided to extend his stay there.
Some ministers took Shehbaz’s decision to quit the PAC chairmanship as a sign that he would not return to the country.