Ministers from the coalition parties the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Balochistan National Party Awami (BNP-Awami) expressed serious reservations in the cabinet meeting on Wednesday over poor handling of political as well as government issues by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and Federal Housing and Works Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat took the initiative of questioning the government’s sincerity in curbing corruption in the country.
A source in the federal cabinet told Pakistan Today that as the cabinet completed the agenda of the meeting, Hayat asked Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to open a debate on the current political and governance related issues as well as problems confronting the coalition partners. “The official staff of the prime minister and other bureaucrats representing various ministries were sent out of the room,” the source said. He said Hayat complained that the PPP and its prime minister was not taking coalition partners on board on various serious issues. The source said further that Hayat was of the opinion that the allies would have to pay the price of the PPP’s bad governance. “Faisal criticised the PPP’s politics of reconciliation towards the PML-N, saying that the PPP leadership was not targeting the PML-N which was its political mistake. He also asked the prime minister to clarify the PPP’s position vis-à-vis Dr Zulfiqar Mirza as its mysterious attitude was causing a dent in the ruling coalition and breeding mistrust among the allies,” the source added.
The source also quoted Hayat as saying that the PML-Q had as yet not achieved the goals set by its leadership at the time of joining the PPP-led coalition government. “We have failed to achieve the objectives of political stability, relief to people, good governance and a clean image of the government,” the source quoted Hayat as saying. Babar Ghouri from the MQM and Mir Israr Ullah Zehri from the BNP-Awami fully endorsed Hayat’s reservations, said the source. “Even two ministers from the PPP including Mian Manzoor Wattoo and Mir Hazar Khan Bajrani expressed concerns over the bad governance and their party’s confused political strategy,” he said. Minister of State for Defence Production Sardar Bahadur Ahmed Khan Sehar also spoke in support of Hayat’s views, he added. At one stage, the source said, Hayat told the prime minister that he should have courage like Muhammad Khan Junejo, who sacked corrupt members of his cabinet when something was proven against the ministers. “Faisal said the PML-N and the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf) were targeting the ‘soft underbelly’ of the coalition government by raising the issue of corruption. He said the government was patronising corrupt elements, which was causing political troubles for the PML-Q and other coalition partners, who were in turn being subjected to severe criticism by Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan,” the source said. The source said Hayat told the prime minister that he had written three letters to him regarding corruption in the last six months but no action was taken on them. “Faisal also raised the Mansoor Ijaz issue and said the government had also failed on the foreign affairs front. He said Pakistani Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani and Pakistan’s Representative to the United Nations Hussain Haroon were at loggerheads in the United States but the government had failed to resolve their differences,” the source added.
