News
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
PPP and PML-N ‘lock horns’ over accountability bill* NA body meeting to be held today to consider bill postponed
* Both parties using delaying tactics to keep process lingering on
By Tanveer Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are seemed to be locking the horns over the accountability bill, which led to the postponement of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs meeting that was to be held on Wednesday (today) to consider the dissenting notes of the latter on the bill.
The new accountability law has been lingering on for the last two years with both the parties poles apart on the consensus bill, which has made it difficult for the standing committee to finalise it for the presentation in the lower house of parliament.
The PML-N had submitted four dissenting notes in the standing committee over the accountability bill, which has become a source of dispute between the two sides. Although PPP with the support of its allied parties in the committee can easily sail through by passing it with a majority vote, it wants a consensus with the PML-N on the issue.
The PML-N on the other hand is stuck to its guns, as it has no intention to withdraw its dissenting notes unless the committee incorporates its recommendations in the bill.
According to sources, both parties are using delaying tactics to keep this bill lingering on as both are afraid of having a powerful and effective accountability body because both governments in the federal and the Punjab are tainted with the massive scandals and corruption stories.
During the last meeting of the committee, it was also quite obvious that both parties are not heading towards an agreement over this vital legislation, which has also become necessitated in the current situation of the country where the stories of rampant corruption are churning out on daily basis. During the last meeting, the committee had supported that the National Accountability Commission should be headed by any competent and honest person while the PML-N suggested that it should be headed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
The committee also supported the cut off date of January 1, 1985 for undertaking the accountability under this bill, and rejected the dissenting notes of the PML-N that retrospective accountability should not be time-bound to avoid any perception of grant of selective amnesty. Riaz Fatyana of the PML-Q said that both parties should expedite the work to finalise this legislation, but he too believed that early completion of working on this bill was not in sight.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk