ISLAMABAD: Sheikh Amir Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the government to finalize Federal Budget 2018-19 in consultation with private sector to make it inclusive financial bill. He said this while addressing a session organized by Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in collaboration with ICCI to hold discussion on improving the parliamentary hearing process for formulating inclusive economic and other policies. He said major chambers of commerce & industry of the country were sending budget proposals every year to the government, but most of them were not included in the final budget that was unfortunate.
He said the role of national assembly’s standing committees on commerce & textile, finance revenue & economic affairs, industry and production, energy and others was vital to make inclusive laws and policies and stressed that representative of business community should be called to the meetings of these standing committees so that they could present the voice of private sector in the lawmaking process. He said for inclusive economic policies and laws, government must ensure maximum participation of private sector in parliamentary hearing process and system.
Muhammad Naveed Senior Vice President and Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI thanked the representatives of CRSS for organizing session on improving parliamentary hearing system and hoped that the suggestions given by the business community would be made part of final recommendations for the government. Baser Daud, Mehmood Ahmed Warraich, Khalid Chaudhry, Nasir Chaudhry, Ms. Nasira Ali, Dildar Abbasi, Abbas Hashmi and others also spoke at the occasion and provided useful feedback to bring improvements in the parliamentary hearing process.
Speaking at the occasion, Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director, Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) said that the foundational flaws and lacunas in the parliamentary hearing processes discouraged dialogue between the parliamentarians and the private sector representatives. Resultantly the inclusive policy making suffered as the private sector’s feedback for the potential economic reforms was not conveyed to policymakers which was contrary to the idea of inclusive democratic process. He said CRSS has completed the preliminary research and received comprehensive feedback from the several legal experts to understand the concept of public hearing, the existing systems of public hearing in Pakistan, international best practices and the way forward.
He said the CRSS would present its findings and collect more feedback to formulate the policy proposals for the government. He assured that the proposals given by the business community would be made part of CRSS final recommendations for the government. Tahir Hanif Parliamentary Consultant, Malik Mustafa Program Manager/Research Fellow and Saddam Hussain Research Fellow of CRSS also accompanied him at the occasion.
