Minister leads walkout over delays in highway construction

Balochistan Assembly proceedings were suspended for 15 minutes when a number of provincial ministers staged a walk-out.

Balochistan Assembly proceedings were suspended for 15 minutes on Tuesday when a number of provincial ministers staged a walk-out to protest against the alleged non-payment of funds by the federal government.

The speaker of the Balochistan Assembly suspended proceedings when lawmakers walked out of the session, saying the federal government and the National Highway Authority had not paid the funds they had promised Balochistan for the construction of certain highways

The minister for agriculture, Assad Baloch, raised the issue on a point of order, saying the government had allocated funds to build a road from Gwadar to Chaman when the Gwadar Port was established.

“A port is useless without a communication network,” he said.

He added that the Gwadar port was supposed to be connected to Chaman, a town bordering Afghanistan, but the road from Gwadar to Chaman via Panjgur had not been built for more than four years.

“It should have been completed in 2009 but construction was stopped because of lack of funds and even building machinery was removed from the construction site,” Baloch said.

He alleged that construction of national highways in Balochistan had been halted because the funds for these projects had been diverted to Larkana and Multan.

He said the government had promised to release Rs1 billion monthly to ensure that construction of highways in Balochistan was completed, but this promise had not been honoured.  Baloch walked out of the assembly in protest, and was followed by several other lawmakers until only four parliamentarians were left in the house.

The BA Speaker asked Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Minister Ruqia Saeed Hashmi and Finance Minister Mir Asim Kurd to persuade the lawmakers to end their protest.

When the session commenced the parliamentary leader of the BNP-Awami, Syed Ehsan Shah, also criticised the federal government for not providing opportunities to Baloch officers for working in other parts of the country.

Provincial minister Abdul Rehman Mengal protested against excessive electricity load-shedding in Khuzdar and other parts of Balochistan. He said the power outages had badly affected the agricultural sector and demanded an immediate end to them.

Earlier, two bills were tabled in the assembly. The ‘Balochistan Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, 2010’ was tabled by Minister Saleem Khosa and IPC minister Ruqia Saeed Hashmi tabled the ‘Balochistan Land Laws (Amendment) Act-2010’.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2010.