Sindh Assembly: Budget speeches fail to capture MPAs’ attention

MQM walks out of the session in protest of alleged abductions of its workers.

KARACHI:

In the first post-budget session of the Sindh Assembly, numbers and allocations took a backseat as the former coalition partner of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, raised the issue of the ‘enforced disappearances’ of its party workers and staged a token walkout. 

On Thursday, also the day of MQM’s referendum on accepting PPP’s invitation to join the government, the latter eventually managed to smooth the former’s ruffled feathers and convinced them to rejoin the assembly.



As the session around 11:30am, members of MQM diverted Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani’s attention towards the killing and kidnapping of its workers in Karachi. The party’s deputy parliamentary leader, Khawaja Izaharul Hasan, insisted the speaker pick up his point of order while waving a copy of the Constitution.

“Around 170 workers of our party have been killed and many succumbed to their injuries in the custody of police and law enforcement agencies. The Constitution does not allow extrajudicial killing - so why are workers being kidnapped and killed?”

After demanding the Sindh chief minister to take action against those responsible for the abductions, members of the MQM walked out of the session. The walkout was short-lived as PPP members, including Law Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro and Jam Mehtab Dahar, managed to bring them back.



Mixed signals

In the short absence of the MQM members, however, certain PPP members used the timing to clarify that “there was no record of missing persons from MQM in Karachi.” Sindh Information Minister pointed this out while also assuring that the chief minister had taken notice of MQM’s concerns.

“Our party has inherited the worsening law and order situation dating back to 1985. Karachi also witnessed the same kind of atrocities in the 1990s and many of our workers and leaders were killed during General Pervez Musharraf’s government,” he said.

This triggered a discussion on law and order as a few members from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Fuctional stood up to speak on this issue. The speaker, however, reminded them that the session had been summoned for a debate on the budget.

Budget issues

When the topic of budget was finally broached, most of the members were seen conversing with each other instead of paying attention to the 15-minutes speeches by 12 members of the House. But what was most interesting, perhaps, was the outpouring of criticism on the budget from PPP’s own members.

The emotionally-charged Sardar Ahmed Ali Pitafi from Mirpur Mathelo, Ghotki started his speech by focusing on the facts at hand instead of tall claims. “Yes, we have completed our five years in government but our track record is not so good.  I want to ask everyone, especially the ministers sitting in the front row, what has been done for the education and health departments?” As PPP members at the back asked him to wrap up his speech, members of the opposition thumped their desk, appreciating Pitafi’s candour and encouraging him to go on. “During every meeting we are told that electricity would be generated from the Thar coal next year. When will this will happen?” he asked. “This slow pace raises doubts about the existence of coal reservoirs in Thar in the first place.”

PPP’s MPA Rehana Leghari also highlighted how “development schemes were being given only to criminals and influential people in Thatta.”

MQM’s Khalid Bin Wilayat called the budget a bureaucratic one, pointing out that the government in its last budget had announced it would build 1,066 new roads in Sindh but these were nowhere to be seen. “It looks like the development budget is confined to papers only.”

MQM’s Khalid Ahmed and Naheed Begum and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Sher Zaman also spoke on the occasion. The session was adjourned till Saturday 2 pm.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2013.