Opposition senators grill government on different issues 

Opposition senators gave a tough time to the government on different issues on Friday, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

PML-N Senator Javed Abbasi said it was in everybody’s knowledge how the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) facilitated plea bargain.

He regretted that when lawmakers from the opposition put questions to the government, the ministers even started calling parliament names.

Speaking on the occasion, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said it was unfortunate that despite the fact that teachers had been protesting for the last three weeks, the government was still unmoved.

Senator Raja Zafarul Haq asked the government to accept teachers’ demands immediately.

Leader of the House Senator Shahzad Waseem informed that the government was making efforts to resolve teachers’ issues. “The minister for education is currently abroad. The moment he comes back, we will start working on it,” he assured the angry senators.

During the session, the opposition hit out at the government for importing small quantity of coronavirus vaccine.

Senator Ayesha Raza criticised the government for not introducing a policy with respect to the vaccine. “Please inform me as to why the matter has been left ambiguous,” she demanded.

She asked the government not to dupe the people of Pakistan on the issue by making false promises.

Senator Javed Abbasi reminded that Arif Alvi was not the president of the government or any single party, but of the entire country.

He said at the end of the day it was the parliament that had to enact laws, and the country could not be run on ordinances only.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Law told Senate on Friday that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had recovered more than Rs480 billion during the last 10 years.

The House, which met with Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani in the chair, was told by the ministry in writing that the amounts were recovered under plea bargain, bank default t, loan rescheduling and fines imposed by the courts.

The ministry informed that according to the figures provided by NAB, the anti-corruption watchdog made direct recoveries of over Rs46.38 billion between 2011 and October 2020, while it recovered Rs395.48 billion from other sources.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said that the NAB had made historic recoveries during the last two years.

Later, the session was adjourned till 3 on Monday afternoon.