Afghan peace deal: Opposition asks govt to brief parliament over US-Taliban agreement
Ruling party leader says government working to solve problems inherited from previous regimes
March 03, 2020
ISLAMABAD: The government came under fire in the Senate on Monday for not passing on a fall in global oil prices to the masses, and instead burdening them with a massive increase in taxes, reported The News.
The opposition also demanded that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi share details of the US-Taliban agreement, if it was completely shared with Pakistan, and had Islamabad asked the US to do more for stability with transparency in Afghanistan.
PPP Parliamentary leader in the House Senator Sherry Rehman decried the fact that neither the parliament nor any of its related forums was taken on board on the agreement and Pakistan’s role therein. She insisted that the House should be taken into confidence regarding the agreement.
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Pakistan, she noted, had cooperated a lot and during the last 10 years, so many measures were taken for Afghan peace and the process started during the last two democratic government tenures, and even President Asif Zardari had invited Hamid Karzai at his oath taking ceremony.
"Peace in Afghanistan is vital to regional stability and peace in Pakistan as well," she said. Taking part in the discussion on the commenced motion, Senator Sherry Rehman regretted that the government had further burdened the poor citizens of this country with an extortionate increase of up to 106 per cent in petrol levy.
“It appears that by reducing petrol prices by a negligible Rs5, they were just laying the groundwork for dropping the levy bomb that will send prices of several commodities across the country soaring,” she said. She pointed out that even the Rs5 reduction in petrol prices was inadequate.
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“It is unfortunate that when international prices go up the government is quick to shift its impact on the people but when they go down, the domestic prices are so disproportionately reduced,” she charged.
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“Agriculture, transport and small industries, all will bear the crippling side effects of the levy being imposed in addition to the gas and power tariffs already imposed on them. This is quite clearly an IMF-run government, incapable of protecting its citizens," she said.
She questioned why the government’s policy was not focused on widening the tax base and taxing the rich. "So far the weight of all the additional revenue earning measures has fallen on the backs of tax-payers while the privileged few are busy profiteering from sugar and flour crisis," she added.
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'PM Imran committed to overcoming challenges'
Leader of the House in the Senate, Shibli Faraz said that the PTI government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, was committed to overcome all the challenges being faced by the country.
He said PTI had not created any new difficulty in the country as all the issues, including economic crisis, were inherited from the previous governments and it was working hard to rectify the situation.
He said that the Minister for Power would also brief the House in detail about prices of petrol and gas. He added that Minister for Foreign Affairs would also speak on the agreement between US and Taliban.
Minister for Economic Affairs Division Hammad Azhar said the government had to take tough decisions in view of the ground situation and now things were moving towards stability and the economy would show more promising results.
He called the Orange line train project as an unviable project for which the government would have to give subsidy to keep it running. He reminded the opposition that in 2016, when oil prices had plunged to massive dollars 30 per barrel, PML-N government had increased sales tax to 56 per cent.
Originally published in The News
