The federal cabinet has rejected a Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) report stating that corruption of Rs6-7 billion is committed in the country daily.It also flayed the statement of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman, who said that a soon to be released report of the Bureau would second the report of the corruption watchdog.
There was a heated debated during the cabinet session on Friday regarding the TIP report and the NAB report, which is to be published on December 14.Condemning the TIP report the members asked as to whose agenda the organisation was working on. They observed that corruption of billions on daily basis was not possible in the country.They also asked Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to summon NAB chairman and ask him to explain his statement and his basis for it.
The prime minister formed a four-member committee to probe the corruption charges. The cabinet failed to discuss the proposal of limiting CNG use to public transport and link its prices with those of petrol. However, the prime minister took notice of the goods transporters strike and formed a two-member committee to solve the situation.Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said, taking a strong notice of the ‘one-sided and loaded’ report of the corruption watchdog, the cabinet has formed a probe committee comprising he and Law Minister Farooq Naek,
Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Religious Affairs Minister Khurshid Shah.Kaira admitted existence of corruption in public sector departments but doubted the credibility of the figures given by the Transparency International and questioned that how a corruption of Rs7 billion a day, which means around Rs2.5 trillion a year, could be committed in the country, when the total federal budget outlay was around Rs3 trillion rupees.
To a question he said that such allegations on the government were not new as Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and others too faced such accusations from certain quarters, but later nothing could be established against any of them. About NAB announcement that it would come up with fact-sheet of corruption which would more or less supplement the TI report, Kaira said that it was the proof of their fairness that one of their appointee was keeping a critical eye on the corrupt practices.Sharing other decisions with media, Kaira informed that cabinet has approved a proposal to the increase the number of minority seats from 10 to 14 in the national assembly, from 3-4 each in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa, 9 to 12 in Sindh and 8 to 10 in Punjab.
He said the cabinet approved the Cost and Management Accountants (Amendment) Bill 2012 and amendments in the Stock Exchanges (Corporatisation, Demutualisation and Integration) Act 2012.Kaira said the prime minister during the meeting urged the Afghanistan government to refrain from unfounded accusations against Pakistan. Terming as ‘baseless’ the allegations levelled by Afghanistan regarding Pakistan’s involvement in the attack on the head of National Directorate of Security, the prime minister said the Afghan government should provide solid proofs about the incident.PM Raja in his opening remarks at the weekly meeting said Pakistan is a peaceful country and gives value to its relations with neighbouring states in particular. He said the world and the neighbouring countries must realise that Pakistan considers terrorism and extremism as major challenges.
“Instead of blame game, we should join hands to defeat the nefarious designs of terrorists,” he said.He said the cabinet accorded approval, in principle, for starting negotiation and signing of executive programme of the Agreement of Islamic Cooperation (2012-14) between Pakistan and Morocco. It also approved ratification of Protocol on Cooperation in the field of Archives between Turkey and Pakistan. The cabinet also approved to start negotiations on draft Agreement of Mutual Cooperation in the Field of Justice Administration between Tunisia and Pakistan, and signing of the agreement on Scientific and Technological cooperation between Pakistan and the United Mexican States.He said finance minister apprised the cabinet that the Consumer Price Index had been reduced to a single digit in 2012-13; and the expenditure of federal government had increased only by 6 per cent, while the inflation rate was 12 per cent.
The minister said on the other hand, the expenditure of provincial governments had increased by 21 per cent. He said the federal government had doubled its tax collection but the provinces had not been able to increase their tax collection. He said the Centre had given Rs5,000 billion to provinces from the divisible pool during the last three years.To a question about the CNG issue the minister said that gas shortage was a routine in the winter season and the nation has to face it till the time some permanent solution to the problem is found out.
He further said that Ogra and CNG association representatives are negotiating the pricing formula and Supreme Court is also involved in the matter and hoped that things would be settled for better. He also referred to the taking up of overbilling issue of tubewell power connections and said that it was decided that now Wapda would issue cards to the tubewell owners and the meter readers would also record the reading on the cards with owners to avert overbilling.