PA session goes haywire after lawmaker’s mike turned off

Published May 19, 2015
Pakistan Peoples Party lawmakers shouting slogans against Pakistan Muslim League-Functional members during the provincial assembly session on Monday.—Online
Pakistan Peoples Party lawmakers shouting slogans against Pakistan Muslim League-Functional members during the provincial assembly session on Monday.—Online

KARACHI: Lawmakers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and the PML-Nawaz on Monday tried to hijack the discussion on the quarterly report of financial performance of the government and suggestions for the coming budget in the Sindh Assembly when the microphone of PML-F’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi was switched off after the allocated time when she was hitting hard at the PPP government. The move prompted commotion.

PML-F and PML-N legislators rising in their seats pressed the chairman to extend the time to let her complete her speech. Syed Murad Ali Shah, who was presiding over the session in the absence of Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani and Deputy Speaker Syeda Shehla Raza, as one of the members from the panel of chairmen failed to restore order in the house.

Later, when Manzoor Wasan was given the floor, there was uproar from the PML-F and PML-N lawmakers as he started narrating corruption stories of the PML-F during the Zia and Musharraf eras. He urged the member to speak on the current budget reports and the new budget proposals. But the rumpus continued. The chair tried to restore order by reminding the MPAs to read the rule 233 which empowered the speaker to withdraw members or suspend the sitting but to no avail, and the rest of the proceedings continued without order in the house.

Ms Abbasi, who had come to the house with sufficient homework, quoting figures of corruption of different departments from the audit report, termed the Sindh government as the most corrupt government. She said the auditor general of Sindh in his report had mentioned Rs22 billion corruption, Local Government Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon had given a statement on the floor of the house that there were terrorists in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

Demanding that the list of those ‘terrorists’ be submitted to the house, she asked if that was the reason for the poor performance of the KWSB. What action the government had taken against such persons, she further asked and said the government was busy in corruption. She asked if Benazir Bhutto had sacrificed her life so that party people indulged in corruption. She recalled that a former education minister of the PPP had appointed 30,000 fake employees while present Education Minister Nisar Ahmad Khuhro was busy attending dance and music parties, whose video was in her mobile phone. “He has no conscience. If this is his morality, how he could bring improvement in education. He should seek pardon from the people, particularly mothers and sisters, in Sindh,” she said.

Despite reminders by the chairman to the MPA and her colleagues that she had already consumed eight minutes against the five-minute allocated time, she continued her speech. Some of the women MPAs from the treasury benches also stood up to protest against the attitude of the PML-F and PML-N lawmakers and a shouting match between the two sides started.

In view of the rumpus, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khwaja Izhar-ul-Hassan stood up and tried to pacify the situation, asking the chair to let her complete her speech.

Ms Abbasi, getting seven minutes, continued her tirade against the government and said that employees of local bodies had not been paid salaries for many months. The situation in other cities was worse than that of Karachi. “Our police were good but it was the government who had politicised them,” she remarked.

When Manzoor Wasan, minister of the Anti-Corruption Establishment, Prisons and Minerals, was given the forum, Nusrat Abbasi, PML-N lawmakers Sorath Thebo and their other colleagues started speaking and did not allow him to make a speech. Muhammad Hussain of the MQM asked the chairman to restore order to the house. But as soon as Mr Wasan started speaking the opposition interrupted him.

Information Minister Sharjeel Memon drew the attention of the chair to it and said that he could not understand what Mr Wasan was saying because of the commotion and, therefore, he should be given more time to speak.

Manzoor Wasan, however, continued his tirade recalling stories of corruption of the PML-F during the 16-year collective rule of Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf. The stories of extreme corruption included allotment of 36,000 acres government land in fictitious names. One of their MPAs, he said, had got a government bungalow worth Rs900 million for only Rs3 million and he was convicted by the National Accountability Bureau. He said that from 2002 to 2007 there was a work contract of Rs9 billion for RD 232 to 314 in Nara Canal, but no work was done. Similarly, by changing the direction of the River Indus, he took out 200,000 acres of the river plateau and occupied the land.

The chairman asked him to take his seat, and adjourned the sitting at 2:05pm to reassemble on Tuesday at 10am, when the discussion on post-budget expenditure and pre-budget proposals would resume.

Earlier when the house was called to order at 1:20pm, MQM’s Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani pointed out that during the current financial year 73 per cent of the budget allocation, over Rs5 trillion, had been spent but no change was visible in the life of the common man. Even clean drinking water was not available anywhere in the entire province. In the new budget funds be allocated to set up a university in Hyderabad, he said.

PPP’s Khurshid Junejo said in every district a monitor committee be set up to ensure proper use of funds. PML-N’s Sorath Thebo said the Sindh government continued to cry that it was not getting its due share from the federal government while it had failed to achieve its own revenue targets.

MQM’s Naheed Begum said that in the budget for specific initiative projects Rs5 billon was allocated but no one knew where the amount was spent. She demanded that in the coming budget funds be allocated to set up a women university in Sukkur.

Dilawar Qureshi, also from the MQM, said the condition of education could be assessed from the fact that 7,461 schools had no buildings, 6,039 school buildings were so dilapidated that they might collapse anytime, 2,3047 schools did not have drinking water while 20,212 schools had no toilets.

PML-F’s Rafique Bhanban said despite the huge budget, and its use during the last nine months, its impact was visible nowhere.

PPP’s Erum Khalid said the federal government had not paid its share for the ongoing operation in Karachi, nor had released its share for the development projects, and even the NFC award share was not fully paid. In such circumstances, she said, how Sindh could bear the expenses of security.

MQM’s Poonjo Bheel said that 80 per cent of the RO plants installed in Thar were non-operational.

Nusrat Sultana of the PPP said the chief minister had announced setting up of a cancer ward in the Mirpurkhas government hospital and funds for it be released.

Muhammad Arshad Khilji and Jamal Ahmad of the MQM said the water shortage problem of Hyderabad be solved immediately and attention be paid to pressing issues of Karachi also.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2015

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