Punjab Assembly: No business after quorum pointed out

Members seemed more interested in what appeared to be private gossip.

LAHORE: The provincial assembly session on Tuesday was doomed even before it really got going.

The session was scheduled for 10 am but started at 11:35 am. The attendance was thin and as Ahmed Ali Aulakh, the agriculture minister, rose to answer a question regarding his department, most of the legislators who had submitted questions about its performance were missing.

Further, several members seemed more interested in what appeared to be a lively private gossip.

Hasan Murtaza, a Pakistan Peoples Party member, sought to move an adjournment motion over alleged Labour Department complicity in sugar mills’ exploitation of growers and pressed for it to be taken up out of turn.

The Speaker would not allow that, citing an agreement among leaders of various parliamentary groups not to disrupt the agenda. Incensed, Murtaza pointed out the quorum which was found wanting.

Bells were rung for five minutes at Speaker’s instruction before the assembly was adjourned to meet again on Wednesday.

Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) members Saia Amjad, Khalid Javed Ghural, Amir Sultan Cheema, Seemal Kamran and Majida Zaidi protested loudly alleging a coalition plot not to allow the opposition to move a resolution against the proposed Reformed General Sales Tax.

Earlier, in his answers to various questions, Minister Aulakh said 43 people had been arrested throughout Punjab since 2006 for selling spurious pesticides. He said the convicts had been sentenced to a total of 63 years in prison and fined Rs8.8 million.

He said an assistant director and a district officer had been issued show cause notices for not pursuing the cases in the courts.

He said there were 30 officers assigned to the task.

To another question, he said, research projects costing Rs640 million were currently being funded by the government. He said improved seeds for 33 crops had been approved.

A rice variety approved recently for cultivation, he said, would yield up to 2.8 tons an acre.

He said cotton crop over 800,000 acres had been destroyed in the floods. Yet, he said, the overall crop situation was good.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2010.