AJK parliamentary delegation to visit US, Canada

MUZAFFARABAD, July 02: After making heated speeches in favour of austerity in the Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly (LA), three opposition lawmakers have become part of a 6-member parliamentary delegation which will be on a week-long study tour to the United States and Canada.  Two of the opposition lawmakers are from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) while one is from the Muslim Conference (MC). According to a notification issued by the Legislative Assembly secretariat, the assembly speaker has given the approval for the visit of a delegation of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to New York and Washington DC (United States), and Toronto and Ottawa (Canada). No dates were mentioned in the notification, copies of which were sent to the AJK president, prime minister and other government functionaries.

The purpose of the visit is to “study the political and parliamentary committee system of the respective countries.” The delegation is being led by PAC Chairman Mohammad Abid Khan and includes deputy speaker Shaheen Kausar Dar, Mohammad Najeeb Naqi and Chaudhry Mohammad Ismail Khan (PML-N), Sardar Mir Akbar Khan (MC) and LA Secretary Chaudhry Basharat Hussain. The notification bears the seal of Amjad Mahmood Khanzada, deputy secretary (administration wing). However, when he was  contacted, Mr Khanzada initially denied that any such notification had been issued. When a copy of the notification was presented, he maintained that the notification had been withdrawn.

It may be mentioned here that news of the proposed tour has been severely criticised by the civil society, particularly on the social media. This is because in November last year, a 12-member parliamentary delegation had gone on a ‘study tour’ to the UK and UAE, but no proper homework was done and the tour drew severe criticism.

Sources told Dawn that on June 5, AJK Assembly’s finance committee had allocated and approved Rs5 million for foreign tours of LA members. The PML-N’s Chaudhry Tariq Farooq had opposed the allocation stating that the house still did not know the outcome of the previous tour to UK. However, his stance was rejected by the majority.

An official source claimed the proposed visit to USA and Canada could hardly take place as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had recently prohibited federal ministers, parliamentarians, and other officials from undertaking unnecessary foreign tours.

Source: http://x.dawn.com/2013/07/03/ajk-parliamentary-delegation-to-visit-us-canada/