Raucous protest mars assembly session

Opposition appears fractured over adjournment of question, answer session

PESHAWAR: A protest by opposition members in the provincial assembly on Monday led to the speaker suspending the session for 10 minutes, even as he expressed his displeasure over the absence of treasury members.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly resumed on Monday with Speaker Mushtaq Ghani presiding over the session.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Nighat Orakzai on a point of the order complained that their agenda was being discussed at a slow pace. She urged the speaker to adjourn the question and answer (QA) session for Monday’s session.

Ghani supported the move.

However, K-P Law Minister Sultan Khan pointed out that opposition’s agenda cannot be completed even if the QA session is suspended.

Awami National Party’s (ANP) Sardar Hussain Babak said that it will be injustice with opposition members if their questions are not answered.

Further, answering a question, the provincial minister Akbar Ayub said development funds for the first quarter had been released and asked the opposition to sit with them for finding a way of funding old development schemes.

Meanwhile, ANP’s Bahadur Khan protested that an MNA had inaugurated a project in his PK-16 Lower Dir –IV constituency.

Opposition members proceeded to protest by refusing to ask questions during the session. Annoyed, the speaker ended the QA session.

This, however, enraged the opposition members who surrounded the speaker’s chair, prompting Ghani to adjourn the session for ten minutes.

When the session resumed, Leader of the Opposition in K-P Assembly Akram Durrani said that the government should fund the Annual Development Programme (ADP) while opposition members should not be humiliated in their constituencies.

The former chief minister of K-P said that the government tabled their bills in the assembly and then adjourned the session for ten days and asked how could the assembly’s agenda run like that. He went on to express his opposition to adjourning the QA session.

Durrani further said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had refused to give the province its due share of hydel power profits which was an injustice. He continued that the government should implement the AGN Kazi Formula, receiving thumps of approval from all parts of the assembly. He further demanded three per cent share of National Finance Award (NFC) for the newly-merged tribal districts.

Relief demanded

During Monday’s session, the opposition blamed the government for the current wave of inflation in the country and demanded that the public should be provided relief.

We remember the time when [PTI MNA] Asad Umar used to say that past governments lined their own pockets under the garb of inflation, they said.

K-P Food Security Minister Qalandar Khan Lodhi countered by stating that current inflation was the result of some harsh truths r regarding the economy which cannot be denied.

He, however, urged opposition members to limit themselves to civil criticism. Further, Lodhi said that everyone was worried about artificial price hikes and that they were working to control it.

When Durrani pointed out that few cabinet members were present in the session, and that even fewer will bother showing up if the QA session is adjourned, K-P Assembly Speaker Ghani expressed his annoyance with provincial ministers.

He directed the lone cabinet member present in the house at the time to bring it to the notice of the prime minister. Durrani appreciated Ghani’s action.

Protest on arrest

Earlier, Orakzai condemned the arrest of PPP’s central leader Khursheed Shah and said that her party members are not afraid of arrests or any restrictions imposed on them.

She added that the government should not treat them like animals and then proceeded to stage a token ‘walk-out’ from the house in protest. However, no other opposition member followed her out.

Privilege motion

Members of the K-P Assembly Standing Committee on Health presented a joint privileged motion against Amanullah, the vice dean of the Gomal Medical College in Dera Ismail Khan.

Committee chairman Dr Sumaira Shams and other members said that Amanullah had attended the committee’s meeting which had been held on August 6 while representing his department and behaved irresponsibly despite warnings from the committee’s chair.

She added that the varsity official kept interrupting the meeting through different antics after which the chairman ordered him to leave the conference room. While leaving the room, he threatened committee members to exact revenge from them for throwing him out of the meeting.

The committee urged that the issue should be handed over to the privileges committee to take further action against the official. The motion was approved.

Call to attention notices

ANP’s Samar Bilour moved a call-to-attention notice to increase the job quotas for the differently-abled people from two to four per cent in the province and the non-implementation of the existing quota.

The law minister replied that it was an important issue and that the chief minister has already made an announcement in that regard. He added that Chief Minister Secretariat had written to the administration department in this regard.

Health Minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan responded to a call-to-attention notice by Faisal Zaib of the ANP regarding delays in setting up a basic health unit (BHU) in Shangla. He explained that the project faced delays owing to the absence of funds. He, however, assured that work on the project will resume at the earliest.

Bills

Law minister introduced as many as three bills in the assembly including the Succession (K-P) (Amendment) Bill 2019, the K-P Legal Aid Bill 2019, and the K-P Tourism Bill 2019.

Amendments to the succession law call for the National Database Regulatory Authority (NADRA) to issue inheritance certificate to legal heirs of a deceased individual and the certificate would have legal protection.

The health minister introduced the K-P Regional and District Health Authorities Bill 2019, about the establishment of regional and district authorities under health minister. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2019.