Public holiday delays: Senate to commence on Oct 26

House is to restart a discussion over loans written off by govt departments.

ISLAMABAD:

The Senate session that was due to begin on October 24 has now been rescheduled for October 26, following the public holiday marking Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s demise.

The announcement was made by President Asif Ali Zardari.

Earlier, the session was summoned by the president in exercise of powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 54 of the Constitution for October 24.

The Senate, according to details of previous agenda items, was supposed to restart a discussion over loans written off by government departments. The resolution seeking recommendations from the house for immediate recovery of loans written off by government departments, banks and financial institutions, was moved by Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro on July 27, 2009.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had also initiated a suo motu notice against Rs256 billion loans written off between 1971 and 2009. In February this year, the State Bank of Pakistan had informed the Supreme Court that 56,336 cases of recoverable loans totalling Rs215 billion till December 2009 were pending in various courts.

Afterwards, the court had directed the SBP to institute a special commission to probe loan write-offs.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2011.