News
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Cabinet approves TAPI gas pipeline framework agreement* Information minister says govt will take parliament into confidence on Pak-US Strategic Dialogue
* Govt planning to issue legal notice to Amnesty International
Staff Report
LAHORE: The cabinet has decided to approve the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline framework agreement because it is vital to cope with the current energy crisis in the country, federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said on Wednesday.
He said Pakistan would do everything, which is in its favour, as it is an independent country and would not take any foreign dictation.
He was talking to reporters during a press conference on the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday under the supervision of the prime minister at the Governor’s House. To a question about America’s demand for a military operation in North Waziristan, Kaira stated that the matter, along with the recent Pakistan-US strategic dialogue, had been discussed in the cabinet meeting and the government had a clear policy of considering national interest before anything.
Parliament: The minister added that the government would give a briefing to parliament on the dialogue in its coming session to take it in confidence, as the Pakistan People’s Party believed in taking all stakeholders on board in the government’s policy matters, and even arranged a briefing by the chiefs of security agencies for parliament for the first time in history.
Commenting on the recent meetings between the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid leaders and PPP leaders, including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Kaira said the PPP always believed in politics of unity and never did politics of division.
Legal notice: He said the Pakistan government had several reservations on the recent report issued by Amnesty International that ranked Pakistan as the 34th most corrupt nation in the world. He added that one of the federal ministries was even planning to issue a legal notice to AI.
He said another non-government organisation, PILDAT, had also issued a similar report, “but we should not believe such reports when they are against reality”. He said even the opposition had lodged its protest against the PILDAT report for not being based on facts.
Kaira said that the government had given freedom to the Public Accounts Committee, and they tried to fix the issues pointed by the committee and considered themselves accountable to this parliamentary body. He said that the government was aware of the ongoing wave of inflation and how it was affecting basic household commodities such as flour, cooking oil, sugar, pulses, vegetables etc. He said the media was likely to make fun of him, as had happened in the past, if he urged the people to stop consuming sugar to keep the rates under control, but he said sugar was a basic commodity, which would not affect routine life if they reduced its consumption. He said this would definitely break the cartels of sugar sellers who even exploited the customers during Ramazan.
The minister said the government was investing in the local agriculture sector and had increased the prices of various items, including wheat, to encourage farmers instead of spending Rs 300 billion on procuring these things from abroad, adding that this had positively affected the rural economy.
He said that the cabinet had also discussed the relief package for farmers affected by recent floods in the country, along with the decision to approve the Islamabad Rent Restriction Bill and the decision to renew the defence agreement between South Africa and Pakistan.
It was the 67th meeting of the cabinet to date and the team not only discussed current issues, but also implementation on prior decisions. The foreign minister briefed the cabinet on the recently-concluded third round of strategic dialogue with the US. The salient features of the briefing included that Pakistan was among five countries out of the 184 countries in the world with which the US had strategic dialogue.
The dialogue upgraded to the foreign minister-level and political engagement in five sectors had been extended to encompass 13 sectors. The steering committee headed by the Pakistani foreign affairs secretary and Richard Holbrooke from the US would follow up on the decisions of the dialogue.
The cabinet deliberated on the forthcoming Pakistan Development Forum meeting to be held on November 14-15. It was mentioned that it is an annual event during which Pakistan would present the future economic development vision before the forum before prospective donor countries.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk