Punjab Assembly: Unification Bloc backs govt on cut-motions

Rs104.22 billio­n approv­ed for health, educat­ion and police budget­s.

LAHORE:

Members of the Unification Bloc supported the government in the Punjab Assembly to reject opposition cut-motions while most Pakistan Peoples Party members abstained from the vote here on Tuesday.

The opposition moved three motions seeking to cut the health, police and education budgets. They were rejected through a voice vote and total funding of Rs104.22 billion was approved for their 2011-12 budgets.

“Members of the Unification Bloc have gone against the policy of their party and if they don’t follow the party line on the Finance Bill on Wednesday they are liable to be disqualified under Clause 63(a) of the Constitution,” Seemal Kamran, a PML-Q MPA, later told The Express Tribune.

Clause 63(a) provides for the disqualification of a member that votes against his party in a vote for the election of a chief minister or prime minister, a vote of confidence or no-confidence, or a vote for a Finance Bill or constitutional amendment, but not for voting on cut motions.

While most PPP members remained silent during the voice vote, some of them said “No” when the speaker asked the house whether they voted for the cut-motion. Azma Zahid Bukhari, a PPP MPA, insisted that all PPP members had abstained (remained silent) during the voice vote.

Opposition members in their speeches criticised the Punjab government’s mobile health units and Dansih schools projects. Dr Samia Amjad of the PML-Q slammed the government for not appointing a full-time health minister and for making Rs20-22 billion in block allocations in the budget. “Where is the Heath Care Commission? People were called in from the UK to implement this commission but there has been no more news of it,” she said.

She said the government should devise a pay package for doctors and teachers on the pattern of judges.

PML-Q MPA Dr Faiza Asghar said that the mobile health units were too expensive; a basic health unit built at the same cost could last for 27 years. She said the government should make a strategy to stop Pakistani doctors emigrating and to improve nursing institutes.

“There is no use of building hospitals on trucks,” said Dr Mailk Muhammad Akhtar of the PPP. “The government should improve the existing basic health units. Dialysis centres are closed and there are no medicines for dog bites and snake venom at district hospitals.”

PML-Q Parliamentary Leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin said that the population of Punjab was increasing by 2.9 per cent per year but the government hadn’t built a new hospital in three years.

“Seventy per cent of schools in Punjab don’t have clean drinking water. The prices of textbooks have gone up by 50 per cent and the government has given Rs60 million to Chand Bagh School, an elite private school. This shows the government’s commitment to education,” said Seemal Kamran in her speech.

Azma Zahid Bukhari of the PPP said that some 43,000 schools in Punjab lacked basic facilities.

Responding to questions from opposition members, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Dr Saeed Elahi said that the government had regularised 6,000 doctors to stop the brain drain. He said that Rs5.5 billion had been allocated for the provision of free medicines.

Education Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman claimed the literacy rate had gone up from 54 per cent in 2004 to 62 per cent today. He said 18,000 schools lack basic facilities and Rs150 billion was needed to upgrade them. “We are doing it gradually,” he said.







Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2011.