Going through the Presidential reference, I was reminded of some shah kharchian by other high offices of the govt. I had been reading about. A bit of googling turned up the following:
** NA finance body approves Mercedes for speaker**
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s finance committee on Tuesday approved the purchase of a new Mercedes car for National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain. “The members of the committee have formally approved the Mercedes for the speaker,” sources told Daily Times.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-3-2005_pg7_32
** I want a Merc: Soomro**
*By Zulfiqar Ghuman *
ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro will buy a luxury Mercedes-Benz car from taxpayers’ money to mirror National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain (who got one last year), sources told Daily Times.
Sources said that Soomro on Tuesday sought a verbal approval from the Senate’s finance committee for the vehicle’s purchase. “The Senate chairman wanted to take committee members into confidence before submitting a formal proposal in this regard, but the issue could not be discussed due to time constraints,” they added.
Senate Secretary Raja Muhammad Amin launched the proposal in the committee meeting, saying that a Mercedes-Benz car was “required” for protocol. “The assembly purchased a Mercedes for the speaker last year and now the chairman needs one,” the secretary was quoted as saying. The vehicle for the NA speaker cost the national exchequer around Rs 11 million last year and drew a lot of criticism from within and outside the parliament.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\04\05\story_5-4-2006_pg1_7
** Mercedes in illegal use of NA speaker
**
ISLAMABAD: An accident involving a Mercedes car purchased in 1993 for diplomatic use only - but currently in the regular and illegal use of National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain - has cost the taxpayers about Rs 120 million.
After an accident on the Motorway, Rs 1.4 million was spent on the car’s repair, only for Hussain to refuse to travel in it again. The old Mercedes has been sent to the Cabinet Division and a new Mercedes has arrived in the NA Secretariat for the use of the speaker. Information related to the accident and purchase of the new car was placed before a recent meeting of the National Assembly Committee on Finance, where Hussain first sought approval for the cost of the repair of the old Mercedes and then for the purchase of a new Mercedes.
Under the law, however, the NA speaker cannot use a Mercedes car. Former speaker Yousaf Raza Gilani was sentenced to jail for seven year for using the same Mercedes. The car was purchased in 1993 on the orders of then prime minister Nawaz Sharif on the request of the then speaker.
The accident occurred at Dina when Hussain was returning from Sialkot.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\05\05\story_5-5-2006_pg7_3
** A Mercedesial disdain
*** Ghazi Salahuddin
*If so many people in our impoverished country do not get their daily bread, members of the ruling elite may compensate for this deprivation by eating cake - a somewhat inconsiderate analogy inspired by the long-running Mercedes saga. The latest episode in this serial was the approval of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly to purchase a luxury model of Mercedes worth, yes, Rs 11.7 million for Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain. Incidentally, the meeting was presided over by the speaker himself and the committee included opposition members. A sense of popular outrage has met with, as usual, a calculated disdain. There was also an attempt to justify the decision on the ground that the high status of the speaker demands this privilege.To be fair to the speaker, his limousine is only the latest addition to a large fleet of expensive models of Mercedes and Land Cruisers meant for our VVIPs and VIPs. After all, a government that has the largest cabinet in Pakistan’s history is entitled to think big - even if it is only for itself. Or perhaps the prayers of some of our parliamentarians, offered when they performed Umra at state expense, are now being answered. That the Mercedes are bullet-proof is also instructive. They will protect the rulers from so much else, too. An old advertising slogan for the car was that at sixty miles an hour, all you hear is the tick of the clock. There is no threat of the din of everyday life of the common people breaking in. If democracy itself is considered a noisy and rowdy affair, one would take no notice of it. Such comfort could even lull your conscience.
** And now, Speaker’s House
**The government has approved a project for construction of the Speaker’s house at the posh Ministers’ Enclave in the capital, to be constructed on 3,000sq.yd piece of land. The residence of the National Assembly Speaker will cost approximately Rs34 million, according to present estimates.
Obviously, there appears to be total indifference on the part of the government and the parliamentarians towards strong opinions expressed by various quarters, as well as protests made by the general public, against unjustified purchase of a luxury car by Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain recently.
Perks and privileges
THE Speaker of the National Assembly seems convinced that some matters are best ignored altogether. The perks and privileges of parliamentarians is one such taboo subject for Chaudhry Amir Hussain. The speaker’s standard response to any mention of House expenses is to brush the matter aside, to the approval of the treasury benches as well as large sections of the opposition. But there are exceptions. On Wednesday, he lost his temper when an MP questioned the “excessive expenses” of parliamentarians, in particular the foreign trips undertaken by the Senate chairman and the Assembly speaker. Besides asking him to refrain from joining “conspiracies” against the House, the speaker also cast aspersions on the member by questioning the proprieties of his conduct. Two MMA leaders joined the attack with irrelevant remarks about the dissenting MP’s business interests.
The speaker’s testiness is understandable. Amir Hussain is, after all, the public representative who justified his demand for a 12-million-rupee Mercedes on the grounds that his Iranian counterpart was given an aeroplane for official use. He is the person who approved the creation of 57 posts in the National Assembly Secretariat which need not be advertised as they would be filled at the sole discretion of the speaker. Also, he needs a four-storey official residence that will cost nearly Rs85 million to build — and that includes neither running costs nor, possibly, the value of the land. The National Assembly’s annual budget, meanwhile, is now touching the one billion mark, a figure hotly contested by the speaker who insists that it is no more than Rs980 million. Not to be left behind, the Senate chairman has also requisitioned a Rs12 million Mercedes. He is said to have made 51 foreign trips on taxpayers’ money, compared to the Assembly speaker’s estimated 32. Contrary to the speaker’s assertion on Wednesday, there is no justification whatsoever for these needless expenses and lavish lifestyles, particularly in a country where primary concerns such as education, healthcare, poverty alleviation and employment generation are perennially starved of funds.
http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/11/ed.htm#2
Unlimited extravagance
IT should come as no surprise that the Speaker of the National Assembly, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, has approved the import of a Rs11 million Mercedes limousine for himself. This was done on Tuesday at a meeting of the NA Finance Committee, which the Speaker himself presided over, which perhaps explains why there was no strong objection from the rest of the committee members. While defending his decision to have such an expensive car, the Speaker is said to have reasoned that if his counterpart in Iran could have an aircraft at his disposal, a new car for him should not be grudged. Senate opposition leader Raza Rabbani of the PPP has slammed the decision terming it “a mockery at the abysmal poverty” of the people and said that the Speaker’s reasoning was “hollow and spurious.”
Is there no end to the perks and privileges that a section of members of the government and legislators want to bestow on themselves? In November 2004, 30 bulletproof cars were imported at a whopping cost of three billion rupees for VIPs. Last month we learnt that the government had allocated Rs119 million for perks and privileges of 33 federal ministers, 26 ministers of state, 33 parliamentary secretaries and advisers to the prime minister. Against all this, another Rs11 million for the Speaker’s car seems like adding insult to injury. Where exactly do hapless citizens — plagued by poverty, unemployment, rising prices of basic commodities, poor health care and education - figure in this equation? Do these perks and privileges enable elected members of parliament to better fulfill their promise of “good governance” and public good? Pakistan ranks 142 in the United Nations Human Development Index but one wouldn’t be able to gauge this by the lifestyles of our ministers. It is their attitude which is most unfortunate. For years such actions have ruined the credibility of those in government and unless someone puts a stop to these extravagant practices, those in power will lose whatever little standing is still left in the public eye. Perhaps we can learn from Indian ministers who choose to lead a lifestyle that is more in tune with the nation and people they represent.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/04/01/ed.htm#2
** NA okays Rs 217 billion overspending**
From our correspondent
ISLAMABAD- Terming the budget pro-poor, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Thursday vowed to make Pakistan economically strong and invincible against any internal or external threat…
…The National Assembly meanwhile approved Rs 217 billion of overspending by the government despite the opposition’s objections, by adopting the Supplementary Demands for Grants and Appropriations for the current fiscal ending June 30 2006.
Prime Minister’s Secretariat has topped the list by overspending Rs 38.1 billion beyond the budgetary allocations, the Defence is second by overspending Rs 18.3 billion accumulatively beyond its allocations and Pakistan Railways as third with accumulated spending beyond its budgetary allocations of Rs 3.9 billion
However, beyond the budgetary allocations a huge amount of Rs 81.7 billion under the head of subsidies and miscellaneous expenditure and Rs 7.2 billion under the head of Federal Miscellaneous Investment have also been passed. The Federal Government has also borrowed advances and other loans worth Rs 2.9 billion beyond its budgetary spending during the current fiscal 2005-06.
“The exceeded expenditures in defence has been shown in 4 different heads including Rs 119.7 million in Defence Division, Rs 17.6 billion in Defence Services, Rs 582.4 million in Defence Production Division and Rs 269 million under Development Expenditure of Defence Division,” the documents laid before the House revealed.
The opposition members also snubbed NAB for overspending and asked that this department has nothing to do with real accountability but is just a tool for political victimization.
PPP-P Mehreen Anwar Raja criticised government over concealing the facts that Rs 1.4 billion was overspent by the Cabinet Division for purchasing Mercedes.
Mr. Soomro’s Mercedes Vs Daal Chawal
Our ill-mental politicians, in their love for status have decided to plunder this nation with ways and means available to them. The Senate Chairman Muhammad Mian Soomro who has, according to the news, placed the demand before the Senate’s finance Committee for a Mercedes worth more than one crore & has said to have got a verbal approval.
And guess what? Why he needs the Mercedes. So that he can have an equal status to National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain. So now Mr. Soomro is getting jealous of Mr. Amir Hussain. Our parliamentarians have nothing better to do then to work hard for personal benefits.
Alright now, come to another topic: The government is considering allowing one meal in marriages events. If we all remember well the government put the policy of banning meal on the pretext (or reasoning) that it is causing extravagant spending. So logically one meal of daal chawal is an extravagant spending according to that rule and the Mercedes is not. Wow, does this make any sense?
http://karachi.metblogs.com/archives/2006/05/mr_soomros_merc.phtml
Opposition criticises ‘cover-up’ of overspending
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, June 15: The opposition in Senate on Thursday strongly criticised the government for covering up massive overspending under various heads and failing to submit in the upper house the supplementary grants booklet promised for June 15.
Speaking on a point of order, Ishaq Dar of PML (Nawaz) said apart from spending a huge amount around Rs1 billion, allocated in the current budget, the foreign office had spent Rs100 million more on foreign tours and sought a supplementary expenditure of Rs150 million for the prime minister’s tours.
Ishaq Dar had a verbal clash with Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub during the budget debate for not furnishing the supplementary grants booklet along with budget estimates books and the minister had assured on the floor of the house to provide the book on June 15.
He said that according to the 185-paged supplementary grants book, Rs366 million had been overspent on purchasing 10 Mercedes for ministers, Rs16.40 million sought for two vehicles for the prime minister’s house and Rs577.70 million had been spent on spare parts of a VVIP plane.
He said that Rs1.40 million had been demanded for new vehicles for defence production division, Rs40 million were spent on the so-called national volunteers’ movement, Rs1.90 billion had been spend on provision of subsidy on tariff cess in the civil works department, and Rs63 million had been reflected as NAB’s share in the recoveries through supplementary grants.
http://www.dawn.com/2006/06/16/nat2.htm
:jazak:
:mash:
:subhan:
