Surprise visit: It seems we were missing each other, says PM to senators

Members of upper house to give budget recommendations by Friday.

ISLAMABAD:

The prime minister’s visit to the Senate, after an absence of a year, was a quiet one. The PM gave a two-minute speech and promised to be more elaborate in his remarks to the Senate in his next visit.

A day after senators boycotted the president’s speech on Monday due to the PM’s absence in the upper house, Nawaz Sharif and an entourage of ministers paid a surprise visit to the Senate on Tuesday. When asked by the Senate Chairman, “Do you want to have the floor?”, the PM responded that he had come to pay his regards to senators with whom he enjoys friendly relations, as well as the opposition. It seems, the PM remarked, “we were missing each other”.

“I hold the National Assembly and Senate in the highest esteem,” the PM said. “I will try to make my visits more frequent and address the house in more detail.”

The leader of the opposition, Senator Aitizaz Ahsan, in a statement embellished with Urdu couplets said it was ‘courteous’ of the PM to visit the Senate even if the visit was delayed, as there were ‘unanswered questions’ to be resolved, such as the topic of peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement Senator Tahir Mashadi said his party would support the government in all its “good policies” while Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Senator Talha Mahmood said it seemed that the Senate was missing the PM more than he was missing the Senate.

Additionally, Senator Taj Haider of the Pakistan Peoples Party became the 104th member of the house after taking oath on Tuesday. Meanwhile, on a point of order by Senator Sabir Ali Baloch, which was opened up for discussion and will continue in the next sitting, Baloch said that the president’s speech did not mention the services rendered by former president Asif Ali Zadari, which was ‘part of the parliamentary culture in any civilised country’. Senator Rubina Rehman of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q also criticised the speech for failing to mention the issue of Balochistan even once.

Minister of Finance Ishaq Dar presented the Finance Bill 2014, containing the budget and senators were asked to submit their recommendations by June 6. The finance committee will forward the recommendations within the next ten days.

Reports of committees on the bills to further amend the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act,  Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan Ordinance 1979 and the Service Tribunal Act 1973 were also presented in the house.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2014.