Lack of quorum: Legislative session prorogued indefinitely

Out of eight questions on agenda, only one discussed

LAHORE: The government has once again prorogued the Punjab Assembly session for an indefinite period after its continuous failure to ensure quorum in the legislative house. The House has lost precious time in proceedings several times owing to the insufficient number of parliamentarians.

As usual on Monday, the assembly started its proceedings one hour and eight minutes behind the schedule. Out of the eight questions mentioned in the agenda, only one question was discussed in the House. The rest were disposed of as most lawmakers were absent. The session lasted hardly one hour.

On a point of order, PTI’s Shoaib Siddiqi lashed out at the government, alleging PML-N’s Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who is the National Assembly speaker, and Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique were creating hurdles in the installation of filtration plants in his poor locality.

He claimed he had met with the Railways general manager and asked him why the work on installation of filtration plants was stopped. The official called the assistant general manager to his office who told Shoaib that Ayaz and Saad had directed him to stop the installation of plants.

The PTI lawmaker said it was shameful that people elected legislators to get their problems resolved but no one in the House wanted to discuss the citizens’ problems.

Shoaib then pointed out the lack of quorum, upon which the bells started ringing for a few minutes. The House was adjourned for 15 minutes initially but when the adequate number of parliamentarians did not converge, the session was prorogued indefinitely.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2016.