Ministers were present in the Senate when the issue was raised by the opposition members but leaving alone the contradiction no one thought it necessary to stand up and even deny that no such report was received by the government.
Leader of the Opposition Chaudahry Nisar Ali Khan raised the issue in the National Assembly during the presence of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani. However, the response of the Prime Minister was extremely surprising because he said that the Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin would take the House into confidence on the issue of ADB report. Gilani made a detailed speech in response to the other issue but did not out-rightly reject existence of any such report. He might have assigned the task to the Finance Minister simply because Tarin was not present in the House by that time. One can assume that Prime Minister might have not taken the notice of the report or he was simply avoiding the matter.
The Finance Minister by than has left the House after responding to a call attention notice and Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Asharaf did not turn up. One could not believe that the government was not expecting this issue to be raised by the opposition but the way treasury avoided the matter in the Parliament was suggesting something is fishy and giving credibility to the hue and cry made by the opposition on the RPPs. What led to a suspicion in the whole process was the government refusal to opposition demand for placing before the House the RPPs policy for discussion and approval of the House. Had the government accepted the opposition demand they would not have seen this day.
The leader of the opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan reminded the government that they did not listen to the opposition and signed agreements that are against the interest of Pakistan. Nisar drew the attention of the Prime Minister towards the issue and implored him to take notice of the ADB report himself, either constitute a committee of the House to probe into the matter, or refer it to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). This is not a small misappropriation rather it is very serious issue and the report of the ADB has become international news. Nisar wanted the Prime Minister that this was very important for him to teach a lesson to those who have been involved in misappropriation so that in future no one could have the courage to plunder the wealth of the nation.
The response by the Prime Minister that Finance Minister would take the House into confidence might have disappointed the opposition and people who wanted the country free of corruption. If the Prime Minister could take the House into confidence on other issues why he had not done so in the case of controversial RPPs? This was the biggest question in the mind of every one on Monday in the National Assembly but instead of making any pledge to take action against any misappropriation, he tried to take the credit of transparency by referring to third party validation. He maintained that despite power crisis his government had postponed the RPPs to have a third party validation from the World Bank and ADB to ensure transparency. The fact of the matter is that the government went for third party validation after strong criticism by the media and opposition to the RPPS.
The opposition was not convinced by his statement that ADB report would be presented by the Finance Minister in the House and assurance of transparency in the RPPs particularly and other affairs of the government in general. The opposition is no longer willing to believe him was evident from the following speech of the Riaz Hussain Pirzada who said "how can we believe that government is sincere in the transparency". The frustration of the opposition was clearly reflected from Pirzada's words that the opposition has been co-operating with the government for the last two years because it sincerely wanted good governance and a strong parliament in the country. But what it could do if the government does not want this?
However, appeal by the former Minister for Health Ejaz Jhakarni to the opposition leader for taking notice of the media reports of corruption in his ministry was encouraging and one could expect that other ministers would do the same. On a point of personal explanation Jhakrani requested the opposition leader to take notice of media report and constitute a committee to probe the charges against him.
He said that committee should get all the record of Health Ministry of his tenure for investigation and if charges against him were found true he would be ready to face any action. The issue of the accountability dominated the National Assembly proceedings on Monday and the credit for this goes to the media besides opposition.