Daily Times

Major opposition parties in National Assembly on Monday demanded an investigation into controversial award of contract for the construction of Rs 309 billion Mohmand Dam.

“There are now huge questions on financial transparency of the project,” Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said in his address to the National Assembly.

Criticizing the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, he asked the reason behind awarding the contract through single bidding. “PEPRA though allows single bid, the dam construction can take five to six years so why there was so urgency in awarding the contract,” he said. The PTI government gave the contract after the process was started by the PML-N government, he said. “The process could have been re-started. Heavens won’t have fallen on re-bidding. It’s a matter of Rs309 billion,” he remarked, and demanded of the government to form a parliamentary committee to examine the matter.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari supported the opposition leader’s demand for constituting a parliamentary committee to probe the Mohmand Dam contract issue.

Addressing on the floor of the House, he said the river has damaged as many as 0.9 million acres of agricultural land of Thatta in the Indus Delta so far. He advised the minister for water resources to do proper homework to understand the issue of water, adding that people of Sindh were facing acute shortage of water.

However, when the federal minister for water resources stood to respond to the opposition’s concern over Mohammad Dam, the PML-N president left the House and later the entire opposition staged walkout. In the meantime, PPP’s Shagufta Jamani pointed out quorum but on counting the House was found in order and Water Resources Minister Faisal Vawda briefed the lawmakers in absence of opposition members.

Vawda said Shehbaz Sharif had lied in the assembly and left the House without listening to the facts.

“The Mohmand Dam was only in files and limbo for 54 years. Now that the wheels have started rolling, they are uncomfortable,” he said. Expressing his views on the award of dam’s construction contract to Descon on reported ‘single-bidding’, the minister said the narrative presented by Sharif before the assembly was falsified. “When bids are invited through advertisements, they can’t be called single-bidding,” he said.

Earlier, Shehbaz Sharif claimed that the government was receiving financial aid from foreign countries due to chief of army staff (COAS) and not because of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said the government was unable to run even the routine affairs then how the foreign countries could trust it.

“Expensive electricity is being produced and prices of medicines have also been increased by 15 percent. Inflation is on the rise across country and the genie of power crisis is coming out of bottle,” he said.

Commenting on the issue of investigation into fake bank accounts by the joint investigation team (JIT), former president Asif Ali Zardari thanked Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar for excluding Bilawal’s name from the exit control list (ECL). Terming the fake bank accounts a ‘drama’, Zardari said such tactics were applied in the past too but failed badly.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment earlier in the day, the PPP leader said, “We are happy over provision of relief to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif … we do not want to see daughters and sisters including Maryam Nawaz in prisons.”

Zardari questioned why politicians are asked to appear before NAB when it should be vice versa. “It is not just in the interest of PPP but also you to keep a check on NAB and the cases against politicians it takes up,” he said. “Time has come to summon National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman before the House,” he said, and urged the Imran Khan-led government to rein in NAB to end uncertainty in the country.

Vowing to continue working for democracy, Zardari said it is incumbent on political leaders to keep fighting for democracy and respect for parliament. In a jibe at young treasury members, Zardari said he was also ready to train them in order for them to be prepared to ask and answer the right questions in the House.

Published in Daily Times, January 15^th 2019.