Lawmakers’ agenda: PA to take up four bills during next session

Sanaullah criticises PTI, federal govt after sharing assembly agenda.

LAHORE:

The Punjab Assembly will meet for a two-week session starting Monday, August 27, in which the government hopes to pass four bills.

The house will also discuss the law and order situation in the province.

This was stated by Law Minister Rana Sanaullah who briefed reporters about the agenda of the assembly’s 40th session at the assembly cafeteria on Saturday.

Three of the four bills that will be presented for passage are The Women University Multan (Amendment) Bill, The Public Sector Universities (Amendment) Bill and The University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (Amendment) Bill.

The Punjab government will also propose amendments to the Punjab Assembly Privileges (Amendment) Bill. If passed, it will give the speaker of the house the authority to call an imprisoned member of assembly to the house for a session or other assembly-related business.

Sanaullah said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz members had moved a similar bill during the tenure of the PML-Quaid government but the then chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had opposed the bill. Elahi did it to ‘victimise’ the PML-N, said Sanaullah, but when Moonis Elahi, Chaudhry Pervaiz’s son, was sent to prison he realised he had been wrong to oppose the bill.

The Punjab Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance 2012 will also be laid down before the house.

On Monday, the Excise and Taxation Department minister will answer questions about his department’s performance.

Other ministers who will answer questions about their departments include those for the S&GAD, Communication and Works, Home, Health, Food, Dairy Development, Special Education and Agriculture Departments.

After going over the agenda, the law minister lashed out at Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) chairman Imran Khan for an “inaccurate declaration of assets” and the federal government for “planting Establishment Khan” to counter PML-N’s popularity.

Sanaullah said the PTI workers needed to take to the streets and demand that Khan “return Rs300 million donated to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital”. Khan should be ashamed, said Sanaullah, for “losing the donation money in a speculative business” and for the Rs12,000 he says he owes to someone, “probably a poor widow”. PTI members, he said, should beg, if need be, to return the money Khan owes to the hospital.

The PML-N member said that Khan had not been honest about his assets. The PTI chief, said Sanaullah, has property worth billions of rupees across the country. “His palace in Islamabad alone is worth more than a billion rupees,” said Sanaullah.

“Sheikh Rashid’s joining the PTI is proof that Khan is a pawn of the military establishment, who also has President Asif Zardari’s support to dent PML-N’s vote bank,” said Sanaullah.

Commenting on the suspension of mobile phone services at Chand Raat and Eid he said it may have been meant to extort money from telecommunication companies.

Answering a question, he said the federal government should form a national commission to decide the matter of formation of new provinces. He said political parties should be represented according to their parliamentary strength. “How can two members represent a 371-member house?” he asked. But, he added, the criteria the commission devises should be applicable to all provinces, not just the Punjab.  Asked about Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro’s statement that there is no record of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif being released from the Landhi Jail in 2001, he said that the Pakistan People’s Party was using “cheap tactics to malign the PML-N”.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2012.