PML-N walks out after spat on accountability ordinance

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Monday passed two government bills with consensus, including one giving legal cover to a national disaster management system, despite a row over a presidential ordinance amending the existing accountability law marked by a belated walkout by the main opposition party.
The day’s sitting after a two-day weekend also heard vociferous demands from opposition benches for the implementation of a house special committee report recommending termination of a Musharraf-era lease of railways land in Lahore to a golf club allegedly at throwaway prices and legal action against alleged wrongdoers, including three retired generals.
There was only a subdued assurance from PPP-led coalition government’s Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of the ANP that “God-willing, we will definitely take action” on the report presented in the house on Saturday, though he agreed to a suggestion from Speaker Fehmida Mirza that the house hold a debate on the issue at a later date.
The 48-clause National Disaster Management Bill is based on a 2006 presidential ordinance, which was last re-promulgated in October 2007 but lost validity because of a July 31, 2009, Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a controversial Nov 3, 2007, emergency proclamation of then president Pervez Musharraf and its cover to several of his decrees.
The bill, like the ordinance, provides for the establishment of a National Disaster Management Commission to be headed by the prime minister, a National Disaster Management Authority and provincial and district disaster management authorities as well as creation of a National Disaster Response Force and a National Fund for Disaster Management.
The house incorporated an amendment from PML-N’s Zahid Hamid to provide that, in view of expected changes in the local bodies laws by the provinces, a district disaster management authority be headed by the head of the concerned district local body institution instead of a district nazim.
The second draft passed by the house was the Federal Employees Benevolent Fund and Group Insurance (Amendment) Bill aimed at empowering the Board of Trustees of Federal Employees Benevolent and Group Insurance Funds to increase subscription rates and grants to the benevolent fund to meet shortfalls due to payouts made in excess of the inflow.
Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan led PML-N walkout, which was not joined by other opposition parties and groups, after accusing the government of shortcomings in governance ranging from an alleged hand in some cable operators discarding some major private television channels or changing their frequencies to cricket mismanagement to alleged failure to take to the cabinet before its issuance the presidential ordinance that gives the law and justice ministry powers to transfer to new accountability courts cases relating to their respective jurisdiction that may be pending before the existing accountability courts.
Chaudhry Nisar’s objection to the ordinance followed similar criticism in the house by one of his party members, Sardar Mehtab Khan, on Saturday when a prominent PPP figure, Mian Raza Rabbani, joined an opposition walkout in the Senate after Law and Justice Minister Babar Awan tabled the ordinance in the upper house.
While Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was present in the house and did not speak on the matter, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the law minister himself would explain the position about the ordinance.
Mr Kaira rejected charges of government’s involvement in what he called rows between television channels and cable operators and assured the house that the government remained committed to freedom of media because it believed that democracy could not work without an independent judiciary and independent media.
However, he complained that some television channels had embarked upon a campaign to vilify politicians in satirical programmes the likes of which, he said, were not seen anywhere in the world.