President Arif Alvi has summoned a speical session of the National Assembly (NA) on Monday at the Parliment House at 4 pm, according to the a communique from the NA secretariat’s directorate general of media.
The session was called under section 1 of Article 54 of the Constitution. This will be the NA’s third and the ninth session of the third parliamentary year, during the incumbent government’s tenure.
The session would deal with the contention upon the bill regarding increasing the autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Since greater autonomy for the SBP was one of the preconditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for releasing tranches of its $6 billion loan, many have raised fears about its long-term impact not only on the economy but also on the country’s overall sovereignty.
A day earlier, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had termed the recently-promulgated SBP ordinance as dangerous for the people of the country, saying that step is illegal and tantamount to an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty.
In a statement on Saturday, Bilawal had maintained that the PPP also wants SBP to be independent and to make decisions that are in the interest of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan independently. “However, the ordinance doesn’t make the SBP independent, it makes it independent from Pakistan’s law, it makes it independent from the parliamentary and judicial oversight,” he had added.
He had demanded the government to withdraw the ordinance immediately.
Bilawal had also lashed out at the government over rising inflation in the country. The PPP chairman had said that the government made special assistant “a scapegoat” in the petrol fiasco while the whole cabinet took the decisions. “We demand that all those ministers who were part of the decision-making process should step down.”
He had said that it is “a historical scandal” and the PPP will not accept this robbery. “Some individuals benefited from the petrol crisis,” he added.
On Friday, Prime Minister Imran Khan had asked Nadeem Babar to step down from the position for a 90-day period, during which the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will conduct a forensic investigation into the “criminal acts” that led to the June 2020 fuel crisis.
Earlier this week, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and main spokesperson for party supreme leader Nawaz Sharif, Muhammad Zubair, had said that the PML-N will not allow the SBP bill, which grants the bank great autonomy in line with the recommendations of the IMF, to pass.
The federal government had agreed to grant absolute autonomy to SBP. The central bank’s primary objective under the SBP Amendment Bill, 2021, would be to ensure domestic price stability as it would be free from the responsibilities of supporting economic growth and providing budgetary loans to revive the stalled IMF programme.
The bill states that supporting economic policies has been declared as a “tertiary objective” of the central bank, while the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) cannot investigate the SBP governor, deputy governors, its executives and board and committee members.
Zubair had said that the PML-N had no reservations on the SBP being an independent institution but did have reservations over the fact that the bill was being brought at the behest of the IMF.
“The IMF and World Bank have been trying since quite some for a bill to be passed on the SBP’s autonomy,” Zubair had said, adding that this was “dangerous”.
The PML-N spokesperson had said that the bill would allow the SBP to escape accountability. He said that would only inform the parliament annually on their policies, while the parliament itself would not be able to call on them,
“The SBP governor, after the passage of this bill, will be a representative of the IMF like a viceroy which Britain sent in India & Pakistan.”
“If one year from today, the people are screaming […] that there is a lot of inflation, then the finance minister, the prime minister or other ministers will say we do not have any relation with this or concern with inflation,” he had said, adding that they would point towards the SBP and its governor — who would be protected against any investigation through the bill and thus untouchable.
On the other hand, National Business Group of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Chairman and Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance President Mian Zahid Hussain had supported the government’s decision to empower the SBP through legislation.
In a statement issued in the federal capital on Wednesday, he had said that limiting the government’s role will reduce political interference and it will be able to discharge its duty according to the mandate which will benefit the economy while controlling inflation.
Zahid had said that the government should consider the reservations of the stakeholders and try to introduce a proper accountability mechanism in the central bank.
He had maintained that serious problems will crop up without the control of elected representatives on the activities of the bank as submitting an annual report in the parliament means nothing.
The government should consider forming a committee comprising politicians and independent economists with powers to judge and fire the SBP chief if needed, the business leader had added.
Zahid had said that SBP is a national institution and not a private business that should be out of the control of every authority and should be answerable to the parliament.
In case the proposed amendment becomes law, the government will be left with no option but to appoint weak persons violating merit which will cripple the institution, he had remarked.
He had noted that important economic institutions should be independent but with consensus, while it is a fact that hasty decisions result in remorse.
He had also said that the decision to amend the SBP Act is also a decision taken in haste to revive IMF’s stalled programme which required thorough debate.
The issue requires a national debate while policies should not be short-term but should be framed for long-term benefits as firefighting will lead the economy to nowhere, he had further said.
