The Senate Committee on Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs and Narcotics Thursday decided to call the Finance Minister, Senator Mohamamd Ishaq Dar to brief the committee on the latest economic situation of the country.
“We will request the finance minister to come in the next meeting of the committee and speak about the apprehensions about the economy,” said Chairman of the Committee Saleem H. Mandviwalla.
Among others, the meeting was attended by Senators, Saud Majeed, Ayesa Raza Farooq, Osman Saifullah Khan, Nasreen Jalil and representatives from Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Water and Power and other relevant departments.
Meanwhile, representatives of Finance Ministry informed the committee that World Bank had not suspended its loans or budgetary programme with Pakistan, not had it put on hold on future programmes.
The committee was told that the ministry had already submitted a detailed report to the committee on the issue.
However, the Chairman asked the ministry that if the statement about the suspension of the programme has wrongly been attributed to World Bank, the finance minister should approach the bank to get direct feedback.
Meanwhile, the on the issue of settlement of Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) with the CNG sector, the committee was informed that a summary had already been sent to the Cabinet Division on October 6 and hopefully, it would be sent back within the current month.
The committee also decided to call the Minister of Water and Power and Secretary of the committee to brief on the reply it had submitted on the report of a Standing Committee on Finance, adopted by the house on the issue of payments made to clear the circular debt of power sector amounting to Rs480 billion during 2013. (APP)
