ISLAMABAD: Now that the excitement over the elections of Senate chairman and deputy chairman has died down, the two major parties –PML-N and PPP – are eyeing the chairmanship of key standing committees.

Background interviews with leaders of both parties reveal that there seems to be an understanding between the government and opposition parties over the number of the committees and the distribution of chairmanship duties among them, but the allocation of committees still needs to be sorted out.

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Raja Zafarul Haq, Leader of the House in the Senate and PML-N chairman, expressed the hope that as in the past, they would have no problems as far as the distribution of standing committees between the government and the opposition was concerned.

Mr Haq, however, said that government and opposition parties were yet to discuss the formula in this regard. “It is obvious and natural that everyone wants chairmanship of the choice committees.”

Govt, opposition yet to agree on formula for committee chairmen

Mr Haq said the chairmanship of committees was given to parties in accordance with the number of their seats in the 104-member upper house of parliament. Given the total number of standing and functional committees of the house, he said, each party was to get the chairmanship of a committee for every three senators.

Agreeing with the formula outlined by Mr Haq, the newly-appointed parliamentary leader of the PPP, Saeed Ghani, also expressed hope that there would be no problems in the allocation when the time came.

Mr Ghani said the process of committee formation could take at least a month as in the first phase, the Senate secretariat had asked members to submit their choices and preferences for the committees.

The PPP leader said that under the rules, committee members were required to be elected from the Senate. However, to avoid complications, the house, normally in its first sitting, through a resolution authorised the Senate chairman to constitute committees in view of the members’ preferences.

After the formation of the committees, he said, the house would give formal approval to them and then their members would elect their chairmen.

There are more than 30 standing and functional committees of the Senate and under the agreed formula and given party position, the parties in the government alliance are expected to get the chairmanship of nearly one dozen committees and the opposition alliance of about two dozen committees.

The chairmanship of the committees on interior, finance, foreign affairs, water and power, cabinet secretariat, defence, law and justice and petroleum are considered to be important positions and the parties always desire to head these forums.

Previously, almost all the important committees were headed by opposition members.

A ruling party senator said this time the government would make an attempt to get the chairmanship of maximum number of the choice committees which would help it running the parliamentary affairs in a smooth manner.

Published in Dawn March 18th , 2015

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