ISLAMABAD -  The government Tuesday informed the Senate that National Highway Authority had given 20-year extension to the army-run Frontier Works Organisation, without open bidding, for collection of toll on national motorways.

Replying to a supplementary question of an opposition lawmaker during question hour, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sheikh Aftab Ahmed revealed before the house that the NHA had given 20-year extension to the FWO for collection of toll on motorways.

Later, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar while speaking on a point of public importance, criticised the extension to the FWO what he said the decision was made without bids, without discussion in parliament and even without making it public.

“After the minister disclosed this, not believing that it could be true then I went up to the minister desk to ask about it and was profoundly shocked that it indeed was correct,” he added.

He said that the FWO, a subsidiary of army, had been given the contract for toll collection, a highly lucrative business, without bids. This highly rewarding contract was extended for 10 years during the days of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf without bids and without debate and this extension expired last year, he said. Before this, the FWO was given extension for five years.

Now it has been extended by another 20 years in what he said was a geometric progression, he said.

He said that this intrusion of security establishment in the field of economy without bids and public competition would create resentment among entrepreneurs and pleaded for a review of the decision. He requested the chair to send the matter to the house committee concerned.

On the decision of government to send additional troops to Saudi Arabia, he said, if the troops were deployed along the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border, they could soon get sucked in Yemen also under the doctrine of hot pursuit. It will be disastrous if God forbids it really happened, he said.

On Monday, the defence minister had assured that the troops will be confined within the Saudi geographical boundaries but refused to disclose deployment location.

Separately, State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry out rightly rejected the recommendations of the Senate Standing Committee of Interior by saying that the government had no plans at all to suspend the notification regarding suspension of arms licences of automatic weapons. “The suspension of notification, issued in December last year, is not doable,” he added. The committee had earlier recommended to suspend the notification.

Winding up the debate on the government’s policy of banning the automatic licences and suspension of all such licences issued previously, Talal Chaudhry said that Pakistan was the only country in the world where licences of automatic weapons were issued to individuals. “The decision was taken in the light of the Cabinet decision,” he said adding that issuance of licences of automatic weapons opened ways for inflow of the unlicenced automatic weapons into the general masses. He said that it was true that unlicenced weapons were used in terrorism. “However, the government was ready to incorporate the recommendations of the house in the policy of banning automatic weapons,” he said.

The federal ministers and state ministers who had to wind up the relevant house business present on the agenda left the house earlier to attend a cabinet meeting ignoring the directions of Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani to wait for their turn. This happened when the chair remarked that every minister wanted that the relevant business of his ministry should be disposed of first as they wanted to attend a cabinet meeting and added he would follow the agenda only. Only state minister for interior remained present in the house to dispose of the business of his ministry. The chairman directed the state minister to convey his displeasure to the prime minister over the attitude of the ministers. He said that he was restrained to take a strict action as the parliamentary year was going to an end. All the opposition parties and the members belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) staged a protest walkout over the attitude of the ministers.

Chairman Senate also clarified the impression given by some media outlets with regard to passing of resolution by the Upper House on Chinese language on Monday. “The impression is wrong that the house had passed a resolution demanding that Chinese language should be given the status of national language,” he said. “We cannot even think of giving the status of national language to some foreign language,” he added.  He said that the resolution only asked for making accessible the courses of the official Chinese language to all current and prospective Pakistani CPEC human resource.