Development: Umar Ayub Khan elected chief unanimously

Grandson of General Ayub to head NA Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.

ISLAMABAD:

In order to ensure smooth sailing of heavy legislative business that has to be passed by the parliament as part of the International Monetary Fund conditions, the government has appointed Umar Ayub Khan to head the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.

The NA Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue, Statistics, Economic Affairs and Privatisation is one of the most crucial parliamentary panels that has remained ineffective to play its role in scrutinising economic policies due to inexperience chairpersons.

Umar was unanimously elected on Friday as the new chairman of the parliamentary panel. He was brought in place of an inexperienced and a new comer to the NA, Shaza Fatima Khawaja of the PML-N. PML-N’s Rana Shamim proposed Umar for chairmanship, which was seconded by other committee members.

On March 5, the NA standing committee had chosen Khawaja, as its chairperson. The government not only replaced Khawaja but also dropped her from the committee.

The decision to appoint Umar as the chairman of the standing committee had been taken even before he reached the NA, said Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and chief whip of the ruling party.

The ruling party has so far mishandled the affairs of the standing committee. The government had deliberately delayed the election aimed at avoiding any parliamentary scrutiny of its economic policies, which have so far been formalised in consultations with international lending agencies.

Traditionally, the chairmanship of the NA standing committee on Finance, Revenue, Statistics and Economic Affairs rests with the ruling party aimed at ensuring smooth sailing of legislative business. The standing committees have the ultimate power to reject or approve any piece of legislation except the budget.

Umar was previously the Minister of State for Finance and Revenue in Shaukat Aziz cabinet. With vast experience in economic policy-making, Umar had earlier been tipped as Minister of State for Finance – unfortunately his experience proved to be his downfall then. Umar returned to the National Assembly after five years. He defeated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Raja Aamar Zaman after re-polling on seven polling stations in his ancestral constituency NA-19 Haripur. The Election Commission of Pakistan had initially declared Raja Zaman successful from NA-19.

Umar is the son of Gohar Ayub Khan, former foreign minister, and the grandson of General Muhammed Ayub Khan.

Umar’s biggest challenge will be to ensure smooth functioning of the committee and get the approval of the legislative business, although PML-N has numerical majority as 11 out of 19 members are elected on its ticket.

The opposition can create troubles for the government by bringing politically sensitive agenda items on the table like the government’s privatisation policy and conditions of the $6.7 billion IMF programme.

Opposition Leader in NA, Syed Khursheed Shah has already threatened to go on hunger strike if the government fired contractual employees. Many of them will be laid off as part of privatisation policy.

The immediate challenge for Umar would be to ensure smooth passage of Securities Bill 2014 by December, clearance of revised SECP Act, which will be tabled in the parliament before June, aimed at enhancing the regulatory powers of the SECP and draft Futures Trading Bill of 2014. All the legislative pieces have to be passed at the earliest to fulfill the conditions agreed with the IMF.

As part of IMF’s conditions, the government also has to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Act by end of September to include tax crimes in the Schedule of Offences of AML Act of 2010.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2014.

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