Punjab Assembly: MPAs protest against ‘insulting’ register
MPAs Nazim Hussain Shah, Saeed Nawani, Sanaullah Mastikhel, Ali Haider Noor Niazi and Fozia Behram called the attendance register “an insult” to the lawmakers. They announced that as a protest, they would not sign in even if they attended the session.
PPP’s Nazim Hussain Shah, on a point of order, objected to the ‘strict mechanism’, “Such measures are even not employed in the National Assembly.” An upset Sanaullah Mastikhel vowed to boycott assembly proceedings until the speaker came up with an alternative, ‘less derogatory’ system to mark the lawmakers’ attendance. He then walked out but was brought back by other members of the assembly.
“By taking this step, the 100-year history of the Punjab Assembly has been tarnished. We’d rather die than mark our attendance in this way,” Mastikhel continued.
Law Minister Rana Sanaullah defended this new method saying that it had brought several new faces to the house. He said that fake MPA attendances, brought to the speaker’s attention a day earlier, were not marked by a member but by assembly staff. The fake attendances should be probed, he said. He said the reasons behind incomplete quorum have been found out.
Following the protest, Sanaullah and Speaker Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan announced that a biometric attendance system would soon be introduced, for which funds would be requested from the Punjab government. The speaker directed the assembly secretariat to mark the attendance until the new system is installed, “so that their [members’] self esteem is not hurt”.
MPA Zamarud Yasmin Rana complained that she had been promised that her car, which was damaged outside the assembly by protestors in the last session, would be repaired, but it had not. The law minister told her to approach the commissioner for this purpose.
Sheikh Allauddin offered to get the cars of all MPAs insured and suggested that a committee be formed for this purpose.
Opposition leader Mohsin Laghari said that the law minister travelled with extra security. Sanaullah said that he did not have extra security compared to Moonis Elahi, the former chief minister’s son. He said that he did not have a single Elite Force official. The exchange between the law minister and the opposition continued for some time.
Question Hour
In Food Minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor’s absence, questions about the Food Department were answered by Parliamentary Secretary for food Saeed Mughal.
To a question, he said the government-owned storerooms were old and not in a condition where food could be stored. He said that storerooms in populated areas were being closed down by the government. He informed the house that the government was working to upgrade a storage system which would be used to store as much as 100,000 metric tons of wheat by the next year.
Sardar Khalid Saleem Bhatti said that 30 per cent of the wheat crop in Vehari district was getting ruined under the open skies. On this he was told by the acting speaker, Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan, to move an adjournment motion on the matter.
Starting a discussion on inflation in the province, Mughal said he admitted that the industrial sector was dying due to power and gas outages. He said that even the price control committees had failed to control prices.
The house was adjourned till Friday (today) at 9 am.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2011.
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