Tag: Govt

KARACHI - For the first time Sindh government has imposed tax on the goods to be traded under the recently signed Pak-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement, it has been reliably learnt. The new levy will be collected at the rate of 0.5 percent of the value of the consignment as the Infrastructure Cess, to be charged on the export/imports of PATTA goods from Karachi by air or by sea, well-placed sources told Pakistan Today.
Previously, the consignment of goods traded under the Pak-Afghan

ISLAMABAD - The National Assembly Standing Committee on Privatisation was informed on Monday that the government would seek approval, regarding privatisation of power sector distribution companies (DISCOs), from the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
The Minister for Privatisation Waqar Ahmad Khan said that the government plans to offload shares of DISCOs on the local stock market. He said that a huge potential to sell energy sector shares exists at the local stock exchanges.

HAFIZABAD - Taking notice of a torture incident in a government school, Hafizabad Executive District Officer (Education) Sohail Azhar Khan suspended Headmistress Ghulam Sughran and constituted an enquiry committee to probe into the matter.
Reportedly, Rubina, a teacher at Government Community Model Primary School Marh Bashi, found Rs 500 missing from her purse on the other day and suspected that Yasmin, a student of class three, had stolen the money. Rubina and the headmistress

PESHAWAR - A decision has been made to fire government employees of Grade-15 to 22 who have dual nationality, including four from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Ministry of Defence directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary, IG and Home Secretary as well as officials from FIA, NADRA and other organisations to obtain affidavits from those who have dual nationality and details of their unofficial foreign visits.

WAH CANT - Opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan Saturday warned if the due rights were not given to the people, the rulers' fate would be worse than that of Pervez Musharraf.
Talking to media persons in Taxila, he observed that the present government was worse than Musharraf regime. The law and order situation was deteriorating in the country and poverty stricken people were forced to commit suicides, he held.
Nisar voiced grave concern over

ISLAMABAD - The government has collected Rs 9.7 billion under the head of TV license fee from 11.720 million customers during the last three years through electricity bills. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in a written reply informed the National Assembly that currently, the total number of customers of electricity from whom the amount being deducted in the head of TV licence fee on electricity bills in the country is 11.720 million.
Giving the breakup, the ministry

ISLAMABAD - Due to financial constraints, the Ministry of Finance has turned down a request by the Pakistan International Airline (PIA) for a bailout package of Rs 15 billion and has asked the airline to improve its management. An official source said the PIA management wanted an immediate provision of Rs 15 billion, as the airline was facing liquidity crunch.
They also demanded the rolling over of the debt of Rs 143 billion. PIA is also not able to borrow from the market due to

ISLAMABAD - The government has announced that it would procure 6.5 million tonnes of wheat from farmers at an official support price of Rs 950 per 40 kilogram as a bumper wheat crop of 23 million tonnes is expected in the current year. The decision was taken at a ministerial meeting, held to review the existing wheat procurement policy.
The Agriculture Minister Nazar Gondal chaired the meeting, while attendees included Petroleum Minister Syed Naveed Qamar and Minister for Kashmir

QUETTA - Balochistan High Court has asked the provincial government to submit written reply regarding the reasons for not allowing Jamhoori Watan Party Provincial President Shahzain Bugti, his brother and other family members including females to go their ancestral town of Dera Bugti.
The Vacation Judge Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mengal ordered Thursday for seeking clarification on the writ petition of Shahzain Bugti who was bent upon to go to Dera Bugti along with his brother and

CAIRO - Egypt's embattled government on Thursday announced steps aimed at defusing a bloody revolt, as protesters battled pro-regime militants for control of Cairo's Tahrir Square and spurned an offer to talk. As fighting between protesters and government loyalists raged into a second night, with an unidentified foreigner beaten to death in the square and a hypermarket torched in a Cairo suburb, a number of live feeds by foreign television channels had gone dead - apparently over

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday refused a proposal by a party MPA to allow the party leadership to sit on the opposition benches and try to topple the government of PML-N in Punjab with the help of the PML-Q legislators, saying the PPP would not weaken the PML-N government.
"Ruling Punjab is a right of the PML-N and it was me who had asked Nawaz Sharif soon after the 2008 elections to use his right to form a government in Punjab. Now we should not weaken the

ISLAMABAD - Opposition Leader Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday demanded the government present a list of visas issued to embassies beyond their sanctioned strength to the Senate and National Assembly standing committees on interior and foreign affairs.
"The federal government is responsible for the Lahore incident, as it turned a blind eye to the activities of such foreigners who move freely across the country carrying unlicenced arms," he said while speaking on a point of order. He

LAHORE - The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday requested the British government to seize the bank accounts of Moonis Elahi and Mohsin Habib Warraich, both involved in the Rs 2.5 billion National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam.
The FIA also requested the UK government to extradite Warraich. According to FIA sources, Moonis' name was included by the FIA investigators in Abdul Maalik's statement. Maalik was Moonis' manager. Sources said Moonis' bank account

LAHORE - The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and Punjab government are on warpath on the issue of controlled areas falling into their jurisdictions as DHA claims to have thousands of acres land in its legal control under notification issued in the Gazette of Pakistan while the Punjab government overrules DHA's jurisdiction and plans to make the notification null and void.
PML-N senior leader and MNA Khawaja Saad Rafiq is behind the ripple who brought notification into the notice

LAHORE - Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called upon the Punjab government to ensure an early and transparent investigation of an alleged incident of honour killing of a young woman in a village of Bahawalpur district.
The young woman, Saima, left her parents house in November and went away to Karachi with a man named Dilawar she wanted to marry as her family wanted her to marry someone else. Saima's family had took Dilawar's father to Karachi with them and brought

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday dispelled the impression that the government was under pressure to release the US citizen involved in the killing of three men in Lahore.
"The rule of law is supreme and no one is above the law. The matter is sub judice, and we will respect the law of the land," he told Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raeesani and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information

ISLAMABAD - The government on Tuesday termed as baseless news reports that warned food insecurity scenario in future, saying that there sufficient stocks of grains including wheat and rice in the country. A spokesman for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture said Pakistan has sufficient stocks of grains including wheat and rice and speculations regarding Food Insecurity in Pakistan are completely baseless.
During last fiscal year 2009-10 Pakistan had a wheat production of 23.3