Claiming stakes in the controversy between the federal and provincial governments, particularly between the Centre and Punjab, over devolution related issues, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has sought his party’s representation in the committee recently formed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani during his meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to resolve the row over the issue.
“Chaudhry Shujaat in his recent meeting with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani asked them to include one parliamentarian from the PML-Q in the committee constituted to sort out the devolution-related differences between the federal and Punjab governments,” a source said. The source said Shujaat pressed the case for including a PML-Q representative in the committee on the grounds that departments such as the Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI), Workers Welfare Fund (WWF) and Evacuee Property Trust Board (EPTB) on which the Punjab government had set its eyes and was pressurising the Centre to transfer to the provinces, were currently part of those ministries whose portfolios were with the PML-Q.
“President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani have assured Shujaat of expanding the committee and Sheikh Waqas Akram, State Minister for Human Resource Development, would be made its member so that the PML-Q could present its point of view and be part of the decisions taken by the committee,” the source said, adding that name of Sheikh Waqas had been proposed by Shujaat. A source in the PML-Q told Pakistan Today that Shujaat Hussain had told the president and the prime minister that the PML-Q would strongly resist transfer of EOBI, WWF and EPTB to the provinces.
It is estimated that the financial assets of EOBI are calculated at Rs 148 billion, while those of WWF are around Rs 81 billion. Gilani and Shahbaz, during a meeting last week, had reached an agreement to form the two member committee comprising Senator Ishaq Dar from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to develop a post-devolution process strategy for the distribution of resources of the devolved ministries and their attached departments between the Centre and the provinces.
Shahbaz had called on Gilani after writing two letters to the latter on ‘incomplete’ devolution of ministries. The government of Punjab is upset on the retention of some important departments including EOBI, WWF and EPTB by the Centre. On the other hand, the federal government has placed EOBI and WWF under the newly-created Ministry of Human Resource Development and the EPTB under Ministry of National Harmony, another new ministry, whose portfolios had been given to the PML-Q.
Currently, Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain is federal minister and Sheikh Waqas Akram minister of state for Human Resource Development while Akram Masih Gill of the PML-Q is the minister of state for National Harmony.
