Sound of fury: House echoes with speeches against EC law amendment

Govt catches flak from PTI forward bloc, opposition

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session started on Friday aimed fiery speeches by treasury and opposition members who lashed out at the government for amending the K-P Ehtesab Commission Act 2015 via an ordinance. The session was chaired by Deputy Speaker Dr Mehar Taj Roghani.

A Nowshera lawmaker from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Qurban Ali Khan, raised the subject on a point of order saying, “We established the commission and appointed honest people but the situation changed before it could achieve its objectives.” He added, “Now, all treasury members are being criticised.”

While highlighting the government’s involvement in corruption, he said, “The director general of the commission resigned saying things were not going the right way. Now, we have to be accountable for ourselves and I will take lead in doing so.”

Qurban’s diatribe was followed by Awami National Party parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak who criticised the government for amending the law.

“We spoke about the law when it was being passed from the assembly and had expressed reservations regarding the way it was tabled and passed from the house.” He added, “We talked about its implications and repercussions but certain figures pointed out the opposition had embezzled funds which was why they were opposing the law.”

According to Babak, “Laws are not made for a single party or for a specific period. The K-P government has no intentions of [following through on] accountability; they made this law to exact political revenge.”

Babak criticised the amendment of the law, particularly through an ordinance. He said such methods were not considered positive in democratic processes, even if they were constitutional

“We legislate a law in the assembly but the next day we get its amended copies.”

Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz parliamentary leader Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha also slammed the government.

“The K-P government acts first and thinks later.”  According to Nalotha, “If Ehtesab Commission wipes out corruption and the law is changed as it is no longer needed, we would laud the government.” However, he added, “But if this is not the case, and the law is changed, well that’s not very good is it.”

Parrying the blows

Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman rose to respond to the criticism being shoveled the government’s way and said the DG’s resignation was not over a simple reason. He said, “The DG gave three reasons: internal matters of the commission, anti-corruption merger and presence of National Accountability Bureau.” He remarked, “The DG’s reason for resignation has nothing to do with corruption. But if my fellow [lawmakers’] criticism is based on information taken from media then that’s another thing.”

Farman said, “The law will be brought back to the house for amendments but it is being analysed by a team of top legal experts who will check for shortcomings and the presence of conflict of interest in it.”

Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Higher Education and Information Mushtaq Ghani said their party’s intention should not doubted over amending the law. “The assembly’s job is to make legislation and if a law is implemented but then problems appear, it has to be amended.”

Meanwhile, Pakistan People’s Party lawmaker Sahibzada Sanullah criticised Jamaat-e-Islami for not distributing compensation cheques to earthquake victims in PK-93, Upper Dir-III. “My constituency was hit badly but of 18,000 cheques distributed, only 1,300 were given in my area,” said Sanaullah.

Minister for Finance, from JI, Muzaffar Said responded, saying the finance department released funds for compensation but the federal government had to pay the remaining 50% of the compensation which was not released. He said, “People in my constituency are also waiting for the money.”

Later, the deputy speaker adjourned the session till Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2016.