Summary The Prime Minister will be attending session of the National Assembly after around two months today
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Opposition parties have called a joint meeting on Monday to discuss their course-of-action in case members are not permitted to speak after Prime Minister offers government’s policy statement over Panama leaks probe in the National Assembly today.
Joint opposition against the government in Panama leaks issue will finalise strategy of protest if National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq denies the members permission to speak after government tables its statement.
The Prime Minister will be attending session of the National Assembly after around two months today.
Opposition had compiled seven questions for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to answer before the Parliament. The questionnaire targets Prime Minister’s assets, properties and earnings.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pervaiz Rashid had announced that Prime Minister Nawaz would attend a session on May 13 as he was touring Tajikistan last week.
However, the Prime Minister did not appear in the assembly on Friday and postponed his attendance until Monday. Meanwhile, he left for Turkey on a personal visit to take part in wedding celebrations of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s daughter in Istanbul.
The government has asserted that the premier would answer opposition’s questions about his assets, present his stance after Panama Papers named his daughter and sons in April and offer policy statement over a probe in the assembly today.
Panama Papers had published documents of a law firm called Mossack Fonseca in April that were leaked by an anonymous source. The leaks mentioned Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Safdar and sons for owning offshore companies.
Opposition parties alleged the family of setting up offshore companies to evade taxes and stash its wealth in foreign banks.
The parties came together to call for a probe by Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) and demanded off the government to write to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Anwar Zaheer Jamali to head a judicial commission that would be established.
Prime Minister had addressed the nation through a live broadcast and announced to dispatch a letter to the Chief Justice, accepting opposition’s demand. Since then there was a deadlock between the government and the opposition over proposed Terms of References (TORs) until recently when the government announced to form TORs in accordance with Supreme Court’s directives.
The development came in after the Chief Justice of Pakistan turned down government’s TORs and stated that it was impossible to probe Panama leaks pertaining to premier’s family under the proposal.
Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali stated that it would take years to probe the leaks if government’s proposed TORs were acted upon for a probe.
Opposition parties including Pakistan People s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami Muslim League (AML) convened several meetings earlier to discuss various issues relating to the leaks and a probe.
However, PTI leader Imran Khan, last week, admitted to evading British taxes in 1980s by setting up an offshore company. He revealed that an apartment was bought in London using the offshore company. But chief of the opposition party claimed that nothing that he did was illegal.
Analysts are of the opinion that Imran Khan’s admittal has eased some of the pressure that was mounting on the government.
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