Correct protocol: Governor okays Finance Bill at second time of asking

Government asked to resubmit bill after CM signed where he wasn’t supposed to.

LAHORE:

Governor Sardar Latif Khosa delayed the signing of the Finance Bill 2011-12 for several hours on Saturday after errors were discovered in the paperwork. The bill was finally signed into Act after the Chief Minister’s Secretariat corrected the mistake.

The Finance Bill 2011, which was passed by the Punjab Assembly on June 23, was sent to Governor’s House with the signature of Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan, as is customary. But Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had also signed on the same page, thereby violating Article 116 (1) of the Constitution of Pakistan, according to Governor’s House officials.

Principal Secretary to the Governor Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera wrote a letter to the secretary to the chief minister stating that his signing of the Finance Bill was not mentioned in the Constitution or in any rules or precedents.

The letter stated that under the Constitution, when the Punjab Assembly passes a bill, it is sent to the governor for approval only with the signature of the speaker of the house. The letter asked that the Finance Bill be resubmitted for the governor’s assent without the signature of the chief minister.

The governor’s public relations officer said that the government had realised its mistake and resubmitted the bill, which the governor had later signed.

Former Punjab finance minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira of the Pakistan Peoples Party said that the “embarrassing mistake” by the chief minister was an illustration of how the provincial government often acted in haste.

“The chief minister is the highest office in the province and if he is absent-minded, then his staff will also be incompetent. The chief minister should relinquish all additional charges which he has so that he can perform his primary role with accuracy,” he said. Kaira said that a few months ago, the Punjab government moved a summary to Governor’s House calling for a Punjab Assembly session in 2010 instead 2011.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2011.