Sindh Assembly meets for one minute

House, which met after a week, was adjourned till April 8 due to lack of quorum

KARACHI: After a week-long hiatus, the longest-running session of the Sindh Assembly met for a minute on Thursday before being adjourned for another 18 days before it is to meet again on April 8.

When the session was called to order on Thursday at 2:55pm, the Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani noted that there were only 12 lawmakers present in the House. The issue of the lack of quorum was raised by the Speaker himself, who argued that the session could not be held when the quorum was incomplete. Neither the leader of the House nor the leader of the Opposition attended the session.



Durrani even refrained the Qari from reciting the Quran and adjourned the session till April 8.

PAC chairman elected

Meanwhile, members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) elected the committee's chairperson during its inaugural session on Thursday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Sindh Assembly secretariat had issued a notification, announcing the names of the returned candidates in the PAC elections. The members included Faryal Talpur, Sharjeel Memon, Ghulam Qadir Chandio, Mohammad Qasim Soomro, Abdul Karim Soomro, Syed Farukh Ahmed Shah and Ghanwer Ali Khan Isran. All are affiliated with the PPP.

In the aftermath, some sections of the media and political leaders criticised the PPP government's decision to elect Talpur and Memon as members of the provincial accountability watchdog that is meant to inspect anomalies in the accounts of  various government departments. Both Talpur and Memon are facing cases registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).



The next day, former Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon resigned from the post, citing the NAB's reference against him.

On Thursday, the remaining members of the PAC met in the Sindh Assembly premises for its inaugural session and elected Ghulam Qadir Chandio as its chairperson.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2019.