A tale of inefficiency: Special parliamentary committees fail to deliver

Three bodies remain without chairpersons and have yet to report any progress.

ISLAMABAD:

With Pakistan being confronted by a staggering number of issues, parliamentary initiatives in the form of special committees seem to have failed to deliver.

Constituted after the adoption of certain resolutions in the National Assembly (NA), 11 parliamentary special committees exist currently and are tasked with issues such as the energy crisis, missing persons, regulating fuel prices, tracing those responsible for the country’s debt and overseeing the implementation of other parliamentary resolutions.

Interestingly, three special committees – namely the special committee on domestic and foreign loans, the special committee on missing persons and the special committee to oversee the implementation of resolutions of the All Parties Conference (APC) – do not have chairpersons, according to the latest information put out by the NA secretariat.

“We have sent repeated reminders to the government for making the special committee on domestic and foreign loans operational,” said Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) Deputy Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal, part of the 11-member committee he mentioned. The committee was constituted following a resolution adopted by the NA on July 13.

Asked if the committee had held any meeting yet, Iqbal replied: “Not to my knowledge.”

“The committee was supposed to compile a report within two months, but it hasn’t even met yet,” he added.

“Pakistan’s debt has reached Rs12 trillion from Rs5.5 trillion over the last four-and-a-half years… people are owed an explanation,” Iqbal exclaimed.

The special committee on missing persons, constituted in May this year, has likewise met on no more than two occasions.

“It seems as if the government is least interested,” said Sajid Ahmed, a member of the committee from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Recalling the first meeting, he said only two members, including him, showed up.

Regarding the delay in electing a committee chairperson, Ahmed said “Religious Affairs Minister Khurshid Shah, during the second meeting, suggested that if a Senate committee was working on the same issue, there was no need of an NA panel on the subject.” Shah’s proposal was rejected by committee members, he added.

Ahmed also informed that PML-N’s Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl’s (JUI-F) Maulana Attaur Rehman shied away from chairmanship when asked. He hoped, however, that the committee would meet next week, parallel to an NA session.

The stalled implementation of parliamentary resolutions has haunted the incumbent government throughout its tenure. The opposition has repeatedly complained in this regard as well.

NA Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza constituted an 11-member special committee to oversee that the resolutions, passed in last September’s APC, were implemented. The committee was supposed to make public its progress every month.

Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was appointed committee chairman last November, but he was de-notified a few weeks ago and the slot remains vacant since.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd, 2012.