Shehbaz to chair first PAC meeting tomorrow as NA Secretariat issues production order

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ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly (NA) Shehbaz Sharif will chair the first meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Friday at 3pm as NA Secretariat issued his production order following Acting Speaker Qasim Khan Suri’s approval on Thursday.

Citing the necessity of PAC chairman’s presence during the meeting, the production order’s copies were dispatched to the chairman and the director general of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and other concerned authorities. The NA Secretariat also issued the agenda for the meetings on Thursday.

The meeting would be held at the Parliament House. On December 28, the PAC wing will brief the committee while the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP) and power ministry would brief it on December 31 and January 1 respectively.

On December 13, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government decided to backtrack from its earlier stance and agreed to let Shehbaz have the PAC chairmanship. The development came as good news after a period of two months as the House had been rendered useless after the government and opposition had reached an impasse over the formation of parliamentary committees, especially the PAC.

The argument floated by the PTI government against Shehbaz was: the NA opposition leader cannot head the apex parliamentary committee as he would be auditing his brother, ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s projects, besides he was also under scrutiny for alleged corruption.

The breakthrough came as a result of a meeting between Shehbaz and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan and Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak. During the meeting, it was decided that the NA opposition leader would chair the committee, while a subcommittee headed by a PTI lawmaker would handle audit matters related to the PML-N government.

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