Govt lacks support: Delimitations bill yet to see Senate floor

Rabbani says parliament will not give way to any dictator

ISLAMABAD: The Senate once again was unable on Tuesday to take up 24^th Constitutional Amendment Bill, while Leader of the House Raja Zafar-ul-Haq told the lawmakers Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi would again speak with the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders to win their support.

The bill is meant to allow changes in the allocation of seats to the provinces in the National Assembly and re-marking boundaries of constituencies in accordance with provisional results of this year’s population census.



After its passage by the National Assembly last month, the bill is held-up in the Senate because of the reservations of some opposition parties, mainly the PPP, which has most number of seats in the house after the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Because of the lack of support, the government could not take up the bill during the last session of the upper house of parliament. Several deadlines given by the election authorities to the government to get the bill passed have already lapsed.

During Tuesday session Shahi Syed of the Awami National Party (ANP) criticised deadlock on the issue, saying the PPP supported the bill in the National Assembly but now it has backed out from it in the Senate.

He added that this deadlock was bringing a bad name to the Parliament and making the common man to think that they were the politicians, who encourage dictatorships when they failed to perform their duties.

Without naming any party or the individuals, Syed alleged that some people were blackmailing the government to close corruption cases as bargain to support this bill.

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani observed that the issue was discussed in the House Business Advisory Committee meeting on Monday. He added the penal decided that the leader of house and the leader of opposition would continue their efforts to build consensus on the bill.

Rabbani said the Parliament would not allow any dictator to make his way. “Parliament has always stood against martial law. It has never given way to any dictator, nor would it ever” he remarked.

Raja Zafar-ul-Haq apprised the House that Prime Minister Abbasi would once again contact the PPP leaders -- especially the Sindh government -- to convince them to support the bill.

Press workers strike

Earlier, an interesting situation arose when the lawmakers could not get printed copies of the questions for the Question Hour — the first order of business on Tuesday.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sheikh Aftab sought postponement of the Question Hour. He explained that questions could not be printed because workers of the state-owned Pakistan Printing Press were on strike since they had not received salary for the past three months.

A summary has been sent to the Prime Minister for the release of their salary, he said. The press, he added, had old machines, therefore, it was not getting any business and running into losses. However, he expressed the hope that the matter would be resolved in a day or two.



The Chairman intervened and said the prime minister should approve the summary today and the government must release salaries of the workers.

IPPs

The house discussed an adjournment motion moved by Senator Sherry Rehman about the interim award issued by London Court of International Arbitration in favour of nine independent power producers (IPPs), directing Pakistan to immediately pay Rs14 billion.

After the discussion, Rabbani recalled a resolution passed by the Senate, this year, for increasing the upper house’s powers and pointed out that there was a clause that every borrowing should be ratified by the Parliament. He opined that all agreements should be ratified by the Parliament.

Power Minister Awais Leghari admitted that it was a serious issue. However, he accused that the previous PPP regime, which had signed the contact that was later terminated by the Supreme Court. He said many power projects were set up without following due process.

The minister told the house that the office of the attorney general for Pakistan was working on the issue and trying to get the best possible relief after the decision of the London Court of International Arbitration.