• Meeting at PM House sees agreements on some points; both sides to meet again today • Bilawal strikes a more optimistic tone; Dar says partner has ‘nothing to worry about’

ISLAMABAD: As fissures between the ruling party and its coalition partners over the federal budget continued to dominate discussion in the National Assembly, an attempt by the PML-N and PPP to sort out their ‘differences’ made some headway but remained inconclusive on Monday, with both sides likely to sit together again today (Tuesday).

Sources in both parties told Dawn that the meeting was held at PM House, but Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif did not take part.

The PML-N side was represented by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Economic Affairs Minister Ayaz Sadiq, while the PPP delegation consisted of Syed Khursheed Shah, Naveed Qamar and Sherry Rehman.

Sources said the PPP delegation laid some of its reservations before the PML-N members and demanded that adequate funds be provided for flood victims of Sindh.

They said the PM had visited flood areas and promised to allocate required funds for the flood affected people of the province. However, no funds were earmarked in this regard in the budget 2023-24, they added.

• Meeting at PM House sees agreements on some points; both sides to meet again today • Bilawal strikes a more optimistic tone; Dar says partner has ‘nothing to worry about’

Sources said the government side had agreed to provide Rs25 billion for flood victims, but the decision required the consent of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.

The meeting later decided that the government side will apprise the prime minister of the outcome of the meeting, while the PPP team will relay their decision to Mr Bhutto-Zardari, and that both sides will meet again today (Tuesday).

Sources also said the PPP demanded holding of general elections on their scheduled time in November this year.

Meanwhile, the PPP chairman sounded much more optimistic, saying that his party “had no differences” with the PML-N and was still a part of the coalition government.

“I hope to take politics forward under the Charter of Democracy and I don’t see any disagreement with the PML-N in the future as well,” he told mediapersons after the oath-taking of newly-elected Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab.

The PPP chairman said that the party would carry forward the ‘Charter of Democracy’ signed by his mother, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

Criticism in NA

While this attempt at rapprochement was underway, the National Assembly saw PPP MNAs continuing their criticism of the PML-N’s budget.

PPP MNA Qadir Khan Mandokhail in his hard-hitting speech strongly reacted to the statements made by some PML-N ministers against PPP Chairman and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s address at a public meeting in Swat on Sunday, saying that they should not be forced to give a befitting reply to the PML-N.

Dr Shah defended her party chairman for raising voice over non-release of funds for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the flood-hit areas of Sindh. She also castigated the government over gas shortage and called for providing details to the parliament about the import of oil from Russia and LNG from Azerbaijan.

In response, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stated that a comprehensive “roadmap” to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation work in the flood-affected areas had almost been devised in consultation with the PPP leadership, including Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, during a meeting held on June 16 in Islamabad.

Taking the floor soon after Dr Shah, Mr Dar said that he wanted to give a clarification over the criticism being done on the government over the issue of funds for the flood-hit areas of Sindh.

He provided details of relief work that had already been completed and claimed that flood victims were provided assistance from the Benazir Income Support Programme.

He said almost Rs100 billion had already been spent in addition to the assistance extended by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in kind. Moreover, he said, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had recently approved Rs12bn to replenish the stock of the NDMA, keeping in view the predicted threats of the monsoon and the cyclone.

Mr Dar said a comprehensive report was prepared jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Union and the Ministry of Planning, according to which the economic and physical losses stood at around $30.3bn.

He was said the reconstruction and rehabilitation would take four to five years and it required a medium-term development plan.

The minister said $16.3bn were required to execute the physical work like repair of damaged houses and infrastructure. “Roughly $11 billion out of $16.3bn will be spent in Sindh,” he said, assuring the PPP that everything was under planning as work was underway on it, “so there is nothing to worry about”.

“I think once the budget [ongoing budget session of the parliament] is over, all-out efforts should be made to prepare a CoE to come out of the mess in which the nation had stuck. He said the present “quagmire” was bigger than that of 1998-99 when the country had faced international sanctions after conducting the nuclear test.

The minister, however, claimed that now the declining graph of the national economy had stopped and had attained stability.

Tahir Siddiqui in Karachi also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2023