Balochistan

MPAs renew demand for blue passports

Another resolution for expanding the Parliament Lodges was also tabled and unanimously adopted

Our Correspondent November 12, 2016

PHOTO: FILE

QUETTA: Members of the Balochistan Assembly have renewed a demand for blue passports so that they could travel abroad without having to wait for long and cumbersome visa processing.

Adviser to the CM on Information Sardar Raza Muhammat Barrech tabled an amended resolution seeking blue passports for MPAs. Speaker Raheela Durrani chaired the session and accepted the resolution for debate.

“Being public representatives, it is our basic right to get blue passports. In the amended resolution we have urged the federal government to ensure that blue passports are issued to Balochistan Assembly members on a priority basis,” the resolution read.

Addressing the proceedings, former speaker Mir Jan Muhammad Jamali said the Senate’s former chairman Farooq H Naek and National Assembly’s ex-speaker Fehmida Mirza had adopted the resolution in the Centre that allowed federal lawmakers to get a blue passport as well as health facilities.

Islamabad to make Interpol cognisant of Afghan passport affair

ANP leader Zamrak Achakzai, however, opposed the move on the pretext that a previous resolution of the assembly had gone unimplemented. Achakzai said there was no need to pass more resolutions on the issue “because the federal government has not taken our demand seriously”.

Coming down hard on the centre’s behaviour, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Gul Muhamamd Dumar said it was their basic right to have a blue passport and health facilities abroad.

Overseas Pakistanis can now apply for passport renewal online

Backing the resolution, Opposition Leader Maulana Abdul Wasay said the issue should be resolved in a constitutional way. “Members of other provincial assemblies are still deprived of blue passport so it should be issued to all members.”

After the thorough debate on the resolution, the speaker accepted the resolution. Another resolution for expanding the Parliament Lodges was also tabled and unanimously adopted.

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

COMMENTS (5)

KP | 8 years ago | Reply @ it is their basic right to have a blue passport and health facilities abroad. I believe they are elected to provide basic rights to ordinary citizens of Pakistan. How much effort they are putting to provide basic rights to parliamentarians. I wish the similar efforts are put for citizens of Pakistan.

Ali S | 8 years ago | Reply Strange that people who claim to be representatives of the common man demand that it's their 'basic right' to travel without the hassles of a common man. It should be mandatory for every MPA and MNA to have to get a visa like every other Pakistani. Only ambassadors and embassy workers should be entitled to a blue passport.

VIEW MORE COMMENTS

ishrat salim | 8 years ago | Reply No, blue passports. Live like an ordinary people`s representatives & not like a VVIP. Get treated in any govt hospital like ordinary public only then its conditions will improve. What have you Baluchistan MNAs & MPAs have done to improve the conditions of your people ? Zero, you have utilized only 24 % of budget year on year basis & you expect things to improve then you will tell in public that federal govt is not doing justice. Punjab & others are discriminating Baluch people.

Truth never hides. | 8 years ago | Reply No MPA or MNA should be allowed the blue passport. They should be at the same level as other masses.

Sam | 8 years ago | Reply "Basic right?" We people also have basic rights. Qualify food, cheap and always availble energy, drinking water, security. Give us thise first. Then you can earn passport. MPA should be actualy banned from traveling. There is too much to be done in their constituencies.

Replying to X