Senate Question Hour: Cabinet division ‘doesn’t hold Abbottabad report’

State minister says the report was sent directly to ex-PM Yousaf Raza Gilani.

ISLAMABAD:

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed told the Senate on Thursday that the prime minister enjoys full discretionary powers under the Constitution and he is not bound to get his decisions approved from the cabinet.

“The prime minister being the chief executive of the country is empowered to take decisions on his own…however‚ amendments can be made to curtail these powers if the parliament desires so,” he said.

The state minister was replying to different queries of senators during the Question Hour.

To another question, the minister informed the Senate cabinet division had never been the custodian of Abbottabad Commission Report as it was directly sent to the then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

The Abbottabad Commission was assigned the duty to investigate the events leading to the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a raid by the US forces in a city home to army training school.



He said the incident occurred in May 2011 and the past government was responsible for the report. He said the cabinet division had nothing to do with the said report.

In response to a calling attention notice regarding process of delimitation of constituencies under way in the country for the upcoming local government elections in the absence of new population census, he said no census had been carried out since 1998 although it was due in 2008.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has also sent letter to the prime minister in this regard, he added.

He said that delimitation for the national and provincial constituencies was duty of the ECP and in case of local bodies’ elections the respective provincial governments were responsible.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2013.