NA okays 29 bills with lightning speed

ISLAMABAD:

The National Assembly on Thursday passed 29 bills in a single day with only 15 lawmakers belonging to the ruling alliance present in the House -- and that too with the lack of quorum.

The NA session, chaired by Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf, started off with 36 bills on its agenda. In just an hour, the House approved 29 of them without the lawmakers even bothering to read them.

Of the 29 bills, 24 of them were related to the setting up of new universities and other educational institutions.

Eighteen of the bills that were tabled for setting up new universities were given the nod without even referring them to the relevant NA standing committees.

Noor Alam Khan, a dissident member of PTI, raised his objection over passing so many bills without the quorum in the House. He regretted that there were no members or ministers in the assembly.

Noor continued that the state of education in the country should also be taken into account before passing so many laws related to establishing universities and other institutions.

During the session, the parliamentary affairs secretary responded to a call-attention notice over the gas outages in the country. He said the supply of gas is related to its availability.

Waseem maintained that there was a severe shortage of gas and the government had to supply it to the commercial sector too. “We are not in a situation to supply gas to domestic consumers,” he added.

Federal Minister Syed Khursheed Shah pointed out that the dismissed employees had not been reinstated yet. He demanded action against the ministries’ secretaries, who had not reinstated the employees despite parliament’s order. He added that the secretaries were insulting parliament by not following its directives.

The speaker also took strict notice of the lack of answers during the Question Hour. He ruled that there should be a solid reason for postponing a question during this period.

After receiving the assurances from the ministers, he put off the Question Hour till Monday and adjourned the session till 5pm on that day as well.

The speaker gave the ruling after PPP MNA Dr Mahreen Razzaq Bhutto demanded to know what measures had been taken to provide employment to the country’s youth.

She pointed out that 67% of the country's population consisted of youngsters and 40% of them were unemployed.

The MNA continued that there should be a ruling on the extent to which the "dreams" that the previous PTI government had shown to the youth were fulfilled.

PML-N MNA Shaikh Rohale Asghar said that those responsible should be called to the chamber and questioned about the matter.

The speaker told him that he was also a part of the government.

PPP’s Naveed Qamar said this behavior was unacceptable as the question was related to policy, addng that it required no statistics. Qamar demanded that the relevant authorities should be called and the question should be answered today. He continued that if there was no response, the matter should be referred to the privileges committee.

The speaker said it had been repeatedly ruled that the officials of the ministries to which there would be questions should be present in the galleries. He asked the parliamentary secretary to inform him which officer from the ministry waa present in the NA.

Parliamentary Secretary Waseem said a ruling should be given that no question should be postponed more than once. The speaker gave a ruling that the authorities should reach the assembly with the answer to this query before the Question Hour ended.

(With input from APP)