Senate quorum again delays delimitation bill

The water crisis and the missing person issue discussed in the session

ISLAMABAD: For a second session in a row, the Senate could not vote on the constitutional amendment bill allowing election authorities to carry out delimitation of National Assembly constituencies on the basis of the provisional results of census.

The passing of the bill — a formality since the Council of Common Interest (CCI) gave it a go-ahead on November 13 and it was agreed upon by all political parties — is being delayed since last week due to the lack of quorum in the sessions.

On Friday, the bill was originally deferred to Monday, November 20). But on Monday too, only 14 members were present in the House at the start of the session and only 13 when it was adjourned.



The maximum number of members during Monday’s three and a half sessions was 59 while at least 69 members, out of the original 104, are needed to pass an amendment to the constitution.

Members from the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Fata and Muttahida Qaumi Movement were absent from both the Friday and Monday sessions.

Noting the low attendance, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani asked Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq how he should proceed. The latter requested that the session be deferred till Wednesday.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) member Sadar Azam Moosakhel suggested that some influential quarters may not be in favour of the bill and may be delaying its passing by not showing up. The senate chairperson told him to talk to him in the chamber if he had valid information or reasons.

Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), while speaking on a motion, said Pakistan was likely to have no water by 2025. She pointed out that Pakistan started off as a water affluent country in 1947, with a per capita availability of water at more than 5,000 cubic meters. “What has gone wrong since then?” she asked.

“We have no national water policy despite having a highest water intensity rate — the amount of water, in cubic meters, used per unit of GDP — in the world. Its per capita annual water availability is 1,017 cubic meters, dangerously close to the scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic meters,” she informed the session, stressing the need to formulate desalination methods to meet the country’s water requirement.

Despite a severe water crisis in Gwadar, four desalination plants lay abandoned for the last seven years. The government has made no effort to make them functional. There are 86 countries in the world that are surviving on less water than Pakistan.

Senator Farhatullah Babar – speaking up after Senator Hafiz Hamdullah pointed out that a missing cleric was recovered, but his kidnappers remained unidentified – called for disbanding the present Commission on Enforced Disappearances and replacing it with a new one comprising expert investigators.

“The only way to ascertain who the kidnappers were is to talk to the victims, learn about the details of their ordeal and register FIRs against the perpetrators that are identified,” he said. Although the commission had these powers as per the law, it had made very little headway during the last six years of its existence, he added.

Babar said even though the commission took credit for recovering over two thousand missing people, it had nothing to show in terms of investigation and did not register FIRs against any individual or organisation.

“Furthermore, the commission also has the authority to declassify its periodic reports without the government’s approval… then what prevents them from doing so?” he asked.



Babar also called for the declassification of the commission’s 2010 report. The commission was only functional for one year under late Justice Mansoor Kamal. “Six years is enough time for an entity to prove themselves and it is time the commission was disbanded altogether,” he said.

Hafiz Hamdullah also later slammed the clerics staging a sit-in in Islamabad for not only causing inconvenience to people, but also for using abusive language. He said when a religious scholar “uses abusive language, it gives the wrong impression about the Ulema’s morality”.

He lamented that the “disciples of the cleric say MashaAllah and AlHamdulillalh after each curse word uttered by him”.

The senate session will reconvene on Wednesday and is likely to adopt the 24th amendment bill. The National Assembly had passed it last week.