Pulling a fast one in the Sindh Assembly

Arif Jatoi objects to Murad Shah's presence in assembly due to his recent resignation, and Shah gives the same retort.

KARACHI:

If there was a theme for the Sindh Assembly session on Thursday, it would be ‘pulling a fast one’.

When National Peoples Party MPA Arif Jatoi objected to Sindh Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah’s presence in the assembly, given Shah’s recent resignation over his dual nationality, Shah retorted by accusing Jatoi of doing just that.

But Jatoi managed to make a point, repeatedly accusing the speaker of violating the Constitution by allowing Shah to sit there, while Speaker Nisar Khuhro muttered, “No theatrics, no drama.”

Given how MPAs trudge into the assembly, dawdle over starting proceedings - Thursday’s session was a full 90 minutes late - and rush off the minute the speaker calls off the show, it’s highly unlikely anyone is sitting there by choice. But while the Shah-Jatoi spat ended fairly quickly by assembly standards where arguments can last up to two hours, the government is apparently pulling a fast one on everyone.

Hidden within the question-and-answer document was a surprisingly frank admission by the minister for environment and alternative energy. On wind power projects in Thatta and Jamshoro, the document states: “The Department is not actually involved in these projects as the Sindh Board of Investment and Board of Revenue, Sindh, are encroaching into the domain of the environment and alternative energy department.”



And that fairly sums up the state of governance in Pakistan. Ministries and politicians frequently wade into each other’s territories, leaving the other out of the often lucrative loop. This plays out beautifully in court, when ministry representatives are forced to state that they really have no clue about the issue at hand.

And instead of focusing on the many, many problems in Sindh, the Kalabagh Dam reared its head in the assembly with MPA after MPA rallying against the project, even with PPP minister Nadir Magsi protesting that there wasn’t really anything to protest since “there was no Kalabagh Dam.”

May the season of politicking and election fever never end as PPP MPA Imran Zafar Leghari took the dramatic statements to another level, “We do not want Sindh’s situation to become like that of Somalia” and predictably enough, the discussion ended in rancor with screeching speeches from PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional legislators, still upset at their acrimonious split.

The elephant in the room though was the illness of long-serving Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan, after his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, issued an appeal for prayers for Dr Khan. Speaker Khuhro appeared entirely unaware that the governor was unwell, but whether this means that there could be another contender for the coveted slot - even if there are a few months left for the government’s tenure to end - will undoubtedly be the subject of the day in salons across Defence.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2012.