Many PA panels idle for four years

Lack of accountability exacerbated by non-functional standing committees

KARACHI:

Despite being considered as the eyes and ears of the legislature, the standing committees of Sindh Assembly exist in stark contrast from their role of oversight and monitoring of government departments.

There are 34 standing committees in the provincial assembly which represent various departments and as per the rules of the assembly they have the power to summon any government official or statutory body to examine their expenditures, policies, or functioning.

As per the rules, the concerned department or official is bound to submit a reply to the committee within two weeks. However, despite these vast powers of check and balance, heads and members of the committees have shown little interest in their functioning.

When asked about this disinterest, Syed Zulfikar Ali Shah, Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) for the incumbent government and Chair of the Standing Committee on Revenue, Relief, and Rehabilitation, replied: “we have nothing to do with overseeing the functions of government departments.”

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) MPA further said that their job was to make law and give feedback on the bills referred to them by the assembly. When asked how many times have the standing committee met during the last year, Shah said that he could not recall.

“Activity only happens whenever the Speaker sends any bill for feedback and recommendations.” Each standing committee is headed by a chairperson with 11 members and the provincial minister and parliamentary secretary of the concerned ministry are ex-officio members of the committee.

Despite such a broad membership base, some committees have not bothered to convene even once in the past four years.

The Sindh Assembly’s record reveals that the standing committees on agriculture, forest, wildlife, energy, sports, irrigation, livestock, works and services have never held a single meeting to discuss and inquire about public interest issues. Tariq Ali, another MPA for the ruling party and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, when asked why his committee had not met, answered, “we were busy due to the floods and have not had a chance to hold a meeting.” Ali, however, did not respond to The Express Tribune’s follow-up question as to why he had failed to call a single meeting in the past four years when there were no natural calamities.

The Standing Committee on Zakat, Ushr and Religious Affairs Chairman Muhammad Qasim, MPA of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), commenting on the matter, said that his committee had only met thrice in the past four years.

Consequently, the bureaucracy does not take them seriously, as per Qasim. “During the last meeting held a few months ago, I sought a report from the Zakat department over massive discrepancies and delay in distribution of Zakat but have not heard back from them even though the Secretary assured he would resolve the issue,” Qasim informed.

Leader of the Opposition, Haleem Adil Sheikh, believes that the committees do not work because the incumbent government has not given the opposition its proper share in the committees. “As per the Charter of Democracy signed between Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, the Leader of the Opposition is to be appointed as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the national and provincial assemblies.

However, the PPP has appointed its own PAC Chair to hide their corruption in the province,” Sheikh remarked, adding that they had raised the issue of standing committees on various platforms but to no avail.

On the other hand, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukesh Kumar Chawla, informed that the government was willing to hand over some standing committee to the opposition but they refused since they were not given chairmanship of the PAC. “There is no legal obligation for the government to appoint the Leader of the Opposition as the Chair for the PAC,” Chawla told The Express Tribune