Government promises transparency in census

Says data collected by military officials to serve as cross-check on enumerators

ISLAMABAD: The government has assured the Senate of maintaining transparency in the sixth population census that kicked off on Wednesday.

However, it got deferred an important motion calling for the implementation of some key recommendations to improve the process.

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance presented its report over apprehensions about the national census. The penal put forward four recommendations to address questions raised by senators last month.

They included: steps to ensure accurate data of IDPs/TDPs belonging to Fata, data collection on foreign immigrants and overseas Pakistanis, enumerators using CNIC verification and resolution of the problem of blocked CNICs.



After presenting the report, Senator Saleem Manviwalla moved to the next item on the agenda, asking the house to adopt the report.

Law Minister Zahid Hamid aggressively opposed it, saying the members should be given time to read the report before the motion was moved for voting.



To which Mandviwala acquiesced and did not press more, prompting the chair to defer his motion till Friday.

Complications in counting Fata IDPs have already started to surface and in some area protests have been held. The Fata secretariat in its report had told the federal government that all IDPs have returned to their homes by December 31, 2016. This claim was contradicted by the media wing of Pakistan Army which in a statement earlier this week said that 89% of IDPs have returned to their homes.

The law minister; however, assured the upper house of parliament that apprehensions over transparency were unfounded and the methodology adopted for the new census was approved by the Council of Common Interests.



“It is a much improved version of the 1998 census and formulated after detailed meetings and adopted by the CCI,” he said.

According to the minister, the army official accompanying a civilian enumerator had a separate form to fill which would serve as cross-check for the data collected by enumerators.

Moreover, he said, vigilance committees at the district level would also be monitoring the whole exercise.

Though Mandiwala was malleable to the minister’s explanation, the co-mover of the calling attention notice, Senator Taj Haider, was not present in the house.

Sherry gets her adjournment motion admitted

Senator Sherry Rehman of the PPP moved an adjournment motion to discuss what she called sectarian hatred being promoted through racial profiling and footholds of the extremist outfit Dae’sh.

Minister of State for Interior Balighur Rehman opposed the motion, saying, “Under the rules, an issue discussed in the house cannot be taken up through an adjournment motion for four months.”



He said the house held detailed discussions on the issue during the past few months, including on March 3, when it was given an in-camera briefing.

The PPP senator, who was former ambassador to the US and well-versed in negotiating tools, remained intractable.

The chair admitted the motion. Discussion on the motion is likely to start on Thursday.

PML-N Senator Chaudhry Tanvir wanted the house to debate on “uploading of material against religious, social and ethical norms on the social media affecting the youth.

Another ruling party member Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum wanted to discuss the article written by former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani in The Washington Post on March 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2017.