Move to bind PM to attend NA sessions defeated

Opposition proposed amendment to make it mandatory for PM to attend session

ISLAMABAD:

The treasury benches have shot down an opposition move to make it mandatory for the prime minister to attend a session of the lower house of parliament once a week.

The Pakistan Peoples Party, the main opposition group, proposed an amendment to the National Assembly’s rules saying the prime minister should show up in the house on the first Wednesday of every session to answer questions of lawmakers.



The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, however, defeated the amendment. “The prime minister is the chief executive of the country. He cannot be compelled to attend a session as he has to deal with many other administrative issues,” said Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad.



Syed Khursheed Shah, the leader of the opposition who belongs to the PPP, regretted the ‘dictatorial mindset’ of the treasury. “It was a good opportunity to give powers to the prime minister to appear before the house and reply to lawmakers’ questions,” he said after the amendment was shot down.

If the prime minister shows up at least once a week in the house, it will strengthen parliamentary democracy in the country, he said. At the same time, he regretted the PPP could not introduce this amendment during its previous tenure in power. However, he quickly added that back then the prime minister used to attend parliament’s sessions regularly.

The proposed amendment sought to empower the opposition leader to have precedence over other lawmakers when taking up the questions. “The provisions relating to questions shall apply mutatis-mutandis to the prime minister’s question time,” the resolution stated.

PPP’s motion on Nacta

The treasury benches also turned down a resolution by PPP MP Nafisa Shah that asked the government to take steps to make the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) functional.



The treasury members, including Mariam Aurangzeb, claimed the government has already made Nacta effective to tackle the current challenges. “The government is working to make Nacta more effective than the [US] Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” she said, while responding to PPP’s Imran Zafar Laghari’s quip.

“During the PPP tenure, Nacta remained a toothless body and it is the incumbent government that has to clear four-year’s pending rent of a building used for the office of the body,” she said.

Later, talking to The Express Tribune, Nafisa said that through her resolution she proposed an institutional mechanism to fight the war against terrorism. “The government has no institutional mechanism to eradicate this menace.”

Media walkout

Media persons covering the proceedings staged a boycott to protest the Rangers’ search operation at house of Salman Masood, The New York Times correspondent in Pakistan.

Federal Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada and State Minister Balighur Rehman promised the journalists that the matter would be investigated. Later, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a statement that he has ordered an inquiry.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2016.