Opposition stages walk-out in Senate over drone strikes
25 January, 2012
ISLAMABAD: Senators from opposition parties on Tuesday staged a token walkout from the Senate against resumption of drone attacks in the country's tribal areas. Leader of the opposition Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said the government and army had made no announcement that they would defend the Pakistani territory against drone strikes. Responding to this, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the US government should care about the voice of the people of Pakistan. "This [drone strikes] is a direct hit by the US on the territory of Pakistan, which is not acceptable," he added. He said the Senate should pass a resolution, which would be presented in the UN to stop US aggression in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Water and Power Minister Naveed Qamar told the Senate that the government would not impose any new electricity surcharge on consumers to pass on the interest of circular debt. Responding to points of order, the minister said that due to non-payment of the circular debt, independent power producers (IPPs) were taking debts from banks to purchase fuel and produce electricity. Qamar assured the House that the government will give the amount to the banks but it will not give the payments to the IPPs, while the interest will not be passing on to the consumers in this regard. Senators Tahir Mashhadi, Raza Rabbani, Khurshid Ahmed, Haji Adeel, Ilyas Bilour, Abdul Haseeb Khan, Ismail Buledi and Professor Ibrahim said they would oppose the government's any move to pass on interest of the circular debt to consumers. They said the government should take notice of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) terminating its employees without any reason. "Names of the KESC management should be put on the Exit Control List," the senators said. They also demanded that the government control ever-increasing prices of electricity. The minister said the government would discuss the matter of jobs termination with the KESC as "it is acting against the promise it had made with the government". The senators also expressed concern over a government's tender on selling 3G technology licences. PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rasheed said it was alarming that the government had issued a tender to sell 3G and 4G technology licences at base price of $210 million. "The government had awarded a licence for introducing 2G technology for $290 million. It is hard to understand why the base price of the tender for 3G technology is less than that of 2G," he said. ANP Senator Ilyas Bilour said India had sold the tender for 3G technology for $24 billion. Senators, including the PML-Q's Haroon Akhtar, ANP's Haji Adeel, MQM's Tahir Mashhadi and JI's Professor Khurshid Ahmed, demanded that Senate Deputy Chairman Mir Jan Muhammad Jamali direct the government to bring the issue to the Standing Committee on the Ministry of Information Technology. The deputy chairman agreed to the demand and referred the issue to the relevant committee. End.
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