Amid MPA suspensions, session lasts 10 minutes

As many as 84 legislators suspended by the ECP over non-disclosure of assets

LAHORE: There was a dearth of legislators from the treasury benches at the Punjab Assembly session as the memberships of 84 MPAs were suspended by the Election Commission of Pakistan for failing to submit their statements of assets and liabilities. This caused a four-hour delay in the initiation of proceedings.

On Monday, the session started on 5:56pm rather than the scheduled to 2pm. Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal had to adjourn the session after just 10 minutes without even calling the agenda items. The opposition benches pointed out the lack of quorum and lashed out at the government for starting proceedings after a delay of four hours.



The speaker, in his opening remarks, said it was regrettable that Minister for Communication and Works Tanveer Aslam Malik was not present in the house. As a result, the questions to be asked of him were put into pending till next week.

Meanwhile, on a point of order, PTI legislator Murad Rass said government legislators had no interest in the assembly’s business. He said it hardly surprising that the minister was not present in the house as his membership had also been suspended for not submitting his declarations to the ECP.

Rass pointed out that it was the first day of the house, but neither the minister nor the parliamentary secretary was present as their memberships had been suspended. The PTI legislator pointed to the quorum after which the speaker adjourned proceedings till 10am on Tuesday (today).

Some legislators of the opposition benches could be seen poking fun at the treasury over the delay in the start of proceedings.

The women MPAs beat their desks against the unexpected delay in starting the day’s affairs. A number of members of the house reached the Punjab Assembly, but were not allowed to enter as they had failed to submit their statements of assets and liabilities.

Long time no see

Masroor Nawaz Jhangvi of Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam-Fazl ended his longstanding boycott of the Punjab Assembly when he appeared before the house. He had threatened to bring Punjab to a standstill if the basic rights of the people of Jhang were not ensured. He believed they had been blatantly ignored in the 2017-18 budget.

Masroor delivered a fiery speech on June 6, the second day of the ‘general discussion’ on the annual budget. At the time, he said the house should be ‘closed’ if the forum could not provide basic rights to the poor masses.



He then jotted down some recommendations for the finance minister and speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan, but not even a single one was taken into consideration for the budget. The recommendations were related to education, health, clean drinking water, sewerage system and other problems which the people of Jhang were facing. However, nothing had been allocated in the budget.

Talking to The Express Tribune, he said the government had finally accommodated his recommendations and therefore the boycott had come to an end.

It is worth mentioning that Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal had also warned legislators to reachi the house on time so that proceedings were not delayed any further. However, it seemed most of these efforts were in vain.

In previous nine proceedings, the government failed to show the required number of legislators in the House on seven occasions. It was only on two occasions that the sessions completed agenda items.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2017.