PML-N’s 100 MPAs resign from standing committees

Say govt did not name Hamza as PAC chairman in last 14 months

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) lawmakers on Thursday tendered their resignations from all the standing committees of Punjab Assembly to register their protest over not appointing Hamza Shehbaz Sharif as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

A parliamentary delegation of the PML-N comprising senior lawmakers including Samiullah Khan, Chaudhry Iqbal Gujjar, Malik Nadeem Kamran and Zeeshan Rafique submitted the resignations of 100 members of standing committees in the assembly secretariat.

The resignations signed by 100 MPAs were submitted to Parliamentary Affairs DG Anayatullah Lak in the assembly secretariat while Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has also been intimated in this regard.

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MPA Samiullah Khan said, “We have taken an extreme step today as the government didn’t fulfil its commitment to nominate the opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz as PAC chairman despite the fact that the government had agreed that opposition leader will be appointed PAC chairman”.

“It is the darkest day and result of the undemocratic approach of a government that the opposition was forced to resign from the standing committees,” he maintained.

He was of the view that he could not find any such precedent in the parliamentary history of Punjab where the opposition took this grave step due to the policies of the government.

He also urged Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi to bring the Punjab Assembly out of this deadlock as his party PML-Q also played an active role in the Azadi March of JUI-F.

The PML-N lawmakers said the government did not name Hamza Shehbaz as the PAC chairman in last 14 months despite giving them repeated commitments.

The party also said the speaker was not issuing the production orders of Opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz and Khawaja Salman Rafique who are in the custody of NAB at the behest of the government.

Each standing committee of the Punjab Assembly comprises 11 MPAs and six of them belong to the government while five MPAs represent the opposition. At least four MPAs are required to fulfil the quorum of any meeting of the standing committee.

There are 40 standing committees in Punjab Assembly and only 21 have been constituted as yet while all others could not be formed due to the non-cooperation of the opposition with the government over the issue of PAC chairmanship.

Among 21, five committees were being headed by the PML-N before the resignations. According to the rule of proportional representation, the chairmanship of 21 committees will go to the government while 19 committees would be headed by the opposition.

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It was earlier decided between the government and the opposition that Hamza Shehbaz would be nominated as PAC chairman but now the government is showing reluctance as Hamza is facing multiple cases including assets beyond means, money laundering, Ramzan Sugar Mill and Saaf Pani Company by the National Accountability Bureau. The PAC chairman is the most powerful office as the chairman does an audit of the projects initiated by the government and therefore former leader of the opposition Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed of PTI held this office for five years during the last government of PML-N in Punjab.

The standing committees are the most important platforms in the parliamentary form of government where the MPAs hold brainstorming sessions and discussions on legislation and other legislative process.

The rules of procedures of Punjab Assembly do not define any timeframe to the speaker for accepting these resignations and therefore the speaker is not bound to accept the resignations in any given timeframe.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2019.