ISLAMABAD - A parliamentary committee yesterday expressed concern over the foreign debt accumulation and recommended that the government should submit a roadmap to the panel on how such a huge foreign debt could be paid off.

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance, which met here with Senator Farooq Naik in the chair asked the government to take effective steps for foreign loans reduction instead of enhancing them. The committee was concerned over ballooning of debt and recommended that government should also submit a roadmap to the committee on how it had planned to pay off huge foreign debt.

The committee also asked recommended that spend all tobacco related tax collections on health sector. The committee has asked the government to stick to debt limitation law and fiscal responsibility.

The meeting discuss in detail the reduction in duties and taxes on poultry feed additives, veterinary vaccines and pros and cons of the high customs and regulatory duties on import of powdered milk and fish fillet but finally concluded that taxation on feed additives and veterinary vaccines was already abolished in the budget and no change was required for powdered milk and fish fillet.

The issue of subsidized provision of Gypsum to farmers to address the rising issue of water logging was also discussed but then withdrawn when Minister of State for Finance Rana Afzal reported the duty on gypsum had already been cut down to 3 percent form 8pc and the question of provision of subsidy pertained to the provinces – for agriculture being the provincial issues.

Former secretary finance Dr Waqar Masood Khan informed the committee that the supreme court of Pakistan had given a clear verdict to end Riba-based banking system in December 1999 and the same court subsequently remanded the case and referred it to the Federal Shariat Court where it was still pending almost two decades down the road.

He said the government could hardly do anything on the subject unless the court imbroglio was addressed. In the meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Rana Afzal said the government had created Islamic banking system that was growing faster than normal banking system and providing an alternate option to the people.

However some members were of the opinion that it was like setting up mosques and madressahs and at the same time also opening bars and offering alcohol and desired that the national economy should be free from interest to make it completely Halal.

Chairman of the committee Naik had to wound up the subject through a generalised statement asking the government to take visible steps for expeditious resolution of the issue.

A host of recommendations relating to facilities to families of martyrs, incentives and wages for laborers, promotion of tourism, health, education and social security, small dams etc were withdrawn when told that most of these subjects fell in the provincial jurisdiction and being addressed after enhanced transfer of resources from the federation under the devolution.