ISLAMABAD: The fourth meeting of the parliamentary committee on to draft Terms of References (TORs) is scheduled to be held today.
This meeting had been rescheduled owing to the meetings of National Economic Committee and Federal Cabinet meetings. Sources said that the government had planned to request the opposition to end their deadlocks on TORs and progress with discussions to reach an agreement on the final TORs to be submitted. Senior leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Aitzaz Ahsan had said that the deadlock is likely to persist because the government is refusing to accept the opposition’s demands which are very fair and relevant. He added that the opposition will not back down from their core questions under any circumstances.
The meeting is likely to start at 4:00 pm today, sources said. Previously, the government had come up with the suggestion of including eight members form government and opposition each in the TORs committee as opposed to the initially agreed six members from each side. This issue was later resolved in the National Assemble after the government acceded to opposition’s demand of making a 12-member committee.
Members of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) are also part of the parliamentary committee from the opposition’s side. MQM had reached an agreement with the opposition side after an initial dissent and after a cut-off with the joint opposition which was later resolved in a meeting chaired by the leader of the opposition Khursheed Shah. During the time when MQM was in disagreement with the joint opposition, the senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in the National Assembly that MQM had not attended any of the meetings held by the opposition and they did not deserve to be admitted into the committee. Eventually the government and opposition parties agreed to formulate a parliamentary committee to investigate the Panama leaks issue
