Cut motions: Treasury have it easy as Opposition fail to prepare

Punjab Assembly to vote on demands for grants today.

LAHORE:

The opposition put in a disappointing performance in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday, failing to make even one suggestion that could be incorporated in the budget during the debate on demands for grants.

Speaker Rana Iqbal Khan announced at the resumption of the session in the morning that of the 43 demands for grants moved, the opposition and the treasury had agreed to discuss five, pertaining to the police, education, health and services, land revenue and miscellaneous departments.



All 41 opposition members – 26 of the PTI, eight of the PML-Q, six of the PPP and one of the Jamaat-i-Islami had included their names on the five cut motions, but none delivered a speech of substance presenting suggestions for how the budget or policy could be improved.

Most of them stuck to clichéd rhetoric. One simply read out an NGO’s report on education. The speaker repeatedly asked them to propose their own solutions to problems so they could be incorporated in the budget, but the opposition lawmakers made none.

The opposition’s clear failure to prepare for the discussion left the treasury benches free to make their own detailed speeches about policy. Though the vastly outnumbered opposition benches had no chance of winning any cut motions, they also were unable to bother treasury members at all.

“They are comparatively more decent in their attitude, but lack a grasp of the issues. It will take time for them to learn the traditions and the rules of the house,” crowed PML-N’s Waris Kallu, speaking to reporters outside the assembly hall.

Of the five cut motions, two were defeated. The session was adjourned when the third came up for discussions. The debate will continue till noon on Wednesday, after which the house will apply the guillotine to the 43 demands for grants, meaning they will come up one by one and be voted on without discussion.

Police

The opposition moved a cut motion for the Rs70.5 billion police budget to be reduced to one rupee. Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rana Sanaullah opposed it and the motion was defeated.

Samina Khawar Hayat of the PML-Q rehashed much of her old rhetoric to complain that the “many excellent projects” initiated by Chuadhry Pervazi Elahi as chief minister, such as police patrolling, had been abandoned by the PML-N-led government.

She said that around 13,500 crimes happened every day in the province, which showed that the police had failed to establish law and order. She said that police vehicles needed to be repaired and officers needed higher salaries. At this point, the speaker asked the reasonable question of why, then, she had moved to fix the police budget at one rupee.

The PTI’s Mian Aslam spoke about “thana culture” and how citizens suffered when they visited police stations, but made no reform recommendations.

Sanaullah said in response that the Punjab government had decided to recruit young, educated officers for the investigation wing who would change the police culture. He said “police encounters” – generally meaning armed confrontations between police and criminals, but often used as a euphemism for extra-judicial killings – were usually genuine and these helped cut the crime rate. He said that of the Rs70.5 billion police budget, Rs61 billion went to salaries.

Education

The PTI’s Dr Murad Ras proposed that the total Rs38.3 billion on account of demand for grants for education be reduced to Re1. Education Minister Rana Mashhood opposed the motion.

Ras did not make much of an argument, but merely read out a report recently released by an NGO about schools in the Punjab.

Both treasury and opposition members, some of whom had attended a seminar organised by the NGO, quickly recognised the report. Ras, nevertheless, kept reading.

Mashhood announced that the government aimed to raise school enrolment to 100 per cent. In its previous term, the government had recruited 80,000 teachers, half of whom were for science subjects. It had launched a pre-service training programme for new teachers. The government would pass a law requiring private schools which charge fees of more than Rs30,000 per moth to reserve 10 per cent of their seats for poor students.

The PML-Q’s Amir Sultan Cheema moved that the total Rs45.99 billion demand for grant for health services be reduced to Re1. The speaker then adjourned session.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2013.