ISLAMABAD - Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani yesterday reiterated his stance that the task of implementation on the National Action Plan (NAP) on Counter Terrorism should be handed over to the parliament as it was the only forum where all stakeholders could be held accountable.
“The implementation on the NAP requires parliamentary oversight. In the recent past, the federal government had indicated the issues related to the provinces over NAP implementation but these have not been fully implemented while similar complaints have been made about the federal ministries,” said Raza Rabbani while addressing the inaugural ceremony of second internship batch of Senate Internship Programme at the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Studies (PIPS).
The remarks of chairman Senate came following the government’s decision to form a new implementation committee on NAP, headed by National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (r) Naseer Khan Janjua in the aftermath of Quetta bomb blast. Prior to this, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif had stated that lack of progress on NAP was affecting the consolidation phase of Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
“This has been done in the past under the parliamentary committee on national security and that was a very a successful experience,” he said, adding, that this would also enable all political parties to own the same.
Chairman Senate said unfortunately in Pakistan parliament was never allowed to grow and democracy was never allowed to take roots. The institution of parliament, he said, was treated as the secondary element in the affairs of the state. He urged the young interns to have a look at the true picture of its history and understand the real spirit and true perspective of historical constitutional developments.
Rabbani, while shedding light on the internship programme, said the initiative had been conceived after detailed celebrations with the sole objective to give the young generation a practical exposure of the working of the parliament, its practical significance and the role it played in the oversight of the executive thus promoting good governance.
The chairman Senate on last Saturday had given the same remarks saying that the task of NAP implementation should be handed over to the parliament to make all the concerned stakeholders convinced to accept the responsibility for implementing the first ever National Action Plan to eradicate terrorism from the country.
During his emergency visit to Quetta to inquire after those victims who got injured in the bomb blast that killed more than 70 people, Rabbani said that all the concerned stakeholders wanted that parliament should do the monitoring of NAP implementation.
Earlier in the welcome address, Amjad Pervez Malik, Secretary Senate of Pakistan highlighted the objectives of the internship programme and said that internship opportunity would aim at addressing the misconception about political institutions among the general public especially youth of Pakistan.