March 3, 2006	Friday	Safar 2, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, March 2: President General Pervez Musharraf has taken serious notice of non-implementation of parliamentary sub-committee’s recommendation on Balochistan that was submitted to the government in mid-2005.

President Musharraf asked the premier to expedite work on its implementation.

The president was chairing a meeting held on Wednesday that took stock of the Balochistan situation, expecting that Mr Bush might also discuss the issue with General Musharraf as an American congressman had written a letter to US Secretary of State Condellezza Rice to take up the Balochistan issue with Pakistani authorities.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid, Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis Tariq Azim, chief ministers of the four provinces and PML secretary-general Mushahid Hussain.

Sources said that Mushahid Hussain expressed reservations about the non-implementation of the report and said that even if 15 per cent of the 29 recommendations had been implemented in over six months, the situation in Balochistan would have been different.

Prime Minister Aziz is reported to have informed the president that the earthquake in early October last year had hampered the work on implementation of the sub-committee’s recommendations.

The sub-committee was part of parliamentary committee that had been formed under his own chairmanship by the then prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in October 2004. It had been assigned the task of preparing recommendations by January 2005 to the government to resolve the Balochistan imbroglio.

The chairman of parliamentary committee could not pursue the issue properly because of bad health and constituted two sub-committees, one under senator Mushahid Hussain and other under Wasim Sajjad.

While the Mushahid sub-committee had completed its work and submitted the same in senate after which it had been handed over to Prime Minister Aziz. The premier set up a task force and stipulated December 2005 as deadline for its completion.

Three member task force included, principal secretary to the prime minister Javed Sadiq, federal relief commissioner Maj-Gen Farooq Ahmed Khan (who was then chairman of the prime minister’s inspection team) and PML secretary-general Mushahid Hussain.

Ever since neither any article of the said report have been presented to anyone for implementation nor the task force has held its meeting.

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