President Zardari to woo senators over RGST

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

LAHORE: President Asif Zardari has invited senators from treasury and opposition parties to seek their support on the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) bill before Nov 30, our sources has learnt.

The president will hold two meetings with the senators on Monday (today) and Wednesday (Nov 24) in which senators from treasury as well as the opposition parties including PML-N, having strength of seven in the Upper House of the parliament, have been invited.

Earlier, the meeting of senators representing all the parties in the Upper House was scheduled for Tuesday, but later it was delayed for a day and now it will take place on Wednesday.

Confirming the meeting, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar told our sources it would be held on 24th of November.

Sources said President Zardari would hold the first meeting at the Presidency with senators of the ANP on Monday, which has six members in the Upper House of the Parliament.

The six ANP senators who were invited include Haji Muhammad Adeel, Abdul Nabi Bangash, Afrasiyab Khan Khattak, Ilyas Bilour, Farah Aqil and Zahid Khan.

ANP Secretary Information Senator Zahid Khan said: “We have been invited (by the president) on Monday and we will first hold our parliamentary meeting to take our members into confidence regarding the meeting.”

The ANP senators’ meeting with President Zardari will be followed by a major gathering of senators at Presidency to which the PML-N has also been invited. A senior PML-N leader confirmed that an invitation had been extended to the party for 24th.

He said it would be premature to say if the party would attend the meeting, as they would first take the party parliamentarians into confidence over the issue at a meeting in Islamabad.

PML-N Senators include Ishaq Dar, Raja Zafarul Haq, Najma Hameed, Pervaiz Rasheed, Mushahid Ullah, Zafar Ali Shah and Prof Sajid Mir.

At present, the PPP appears to be in minority in both the houses of the Parliament to get the RGST passed even if it is Okayed by the standing committees of the Senate or the National Assembly.

All allied parties of the PPP including ANP, MQM, JUI-F have already expressed categorical no-confidence over the RGST.

Moreover, the stiff opposition to the bill by the PML-N and the PML-Q, forming a strength of 28 in the Senate with 7 and 21 members respectively, has so far made it impossible for the PPP to get it passed with its 27 members solely in the house of the 100 members.

In the National Assembly, the PPP has strength of 126 members in a house of 342, whereas only the PML-N and the PML-Q make the strength of 143 members including 90 of ‘N’ and 53 of ‘Q’.

The ANP and the MQM with 17 and 25 members respectively, forming a total of 42, are already in no mood so far to support the PPP over the RGST issue, the bill that has invoked severe criticism across the divide.

The JUI-F with seven and the PML-Functional with five members in the NA have also not expressed any support to the PPP over the bill.

Having realised massive shortfall of support to get the bill passed, the party leadership has geared up efforts to garner maximum support to get it passed before the deadline of Nov 30, given by the international financial bodies.

The party position in the Upper House of the Parliament is as under:

PPP (27), PML-N including the seat of Sajid Mir (7), PML-Q (21), ANP (6), MQM (6), MMA (9), JUI-F (4), PML-F (1), JWP (1), BNP-Awami (2), Independents (13), PkMAP (1), PPP-Sherpao (1), NP (1).