Govt not serious about labour welfare: Sohna

Minister for labour and manpower says govt protecting exploiters instead of supporting workers.


Express October 23, 2010

LAHORE:


Minister for Labour and Manpower Muhammad Ashraf Sohna has said that the government is not serious in implementing labour laws in the province.

Responding to Nighat Nasir Shaikh’s question, he said that instead of supporting the workers, the political leadership protected the exploiters.

Reacting to the ‘admission’, PML-N’s Mehr Ishtiaq demanded that the minister resign. PPP’s Hasan Murtaza and Sajida Mir responded by asserting that apparently the entire coalition cabinet needed to resign.

Law Minister Rana Sanaullah then assured Sohna that he would arrange a meeting for him with the chief minister within three days so that he can take up his concerns with him.

Sohna told the house that owing to the no-labour-inspection policy, his department was unable to take action against employers that were not complying with minimum wage laws.

Sohna told the house that there were around 25 million industrial workers in the province. Of these, he said, only about 700,000 were registered with the department. He said it was the responsibility of the factory owners with five or more workers paid less than Rs10,000 per month to get them registered.

The registered workers, he said, could avail healthcare and education facilities by paying six per cent of their monthly pay to the Social Security Department.

He said that a bill on the protection of the rights of women workers was under debate in a house committee. He said it would be presented in the house very soon.

Through an adjournment motion, opposition member Amir Sultan Cheema alleged that the health secretary had purchased medicines for the flood-affected people for Rs100 million.

He said that the fair price of these medicines was Rs30 million.

He also named two men, Jalal Bhatti and Hamid Bhatti, through whom he said the secretary had made the purchases.

Sanaullah will make a statement on the subject in the next session of the assembly.

Another six adjournment motions were kept pending for the next session. These were moved by Sahabzadi Nargis Zafar, Dr Faiza Asghar, Sardar Khalid Saleem Bhatti, Chaudary Zaheerud Din and Hasan Murtaza.

Rising on a point of order, Dr Tahir Ali Javed said that the number of dengue patients in the province was increasing at an alarming rate. He said the actual number was far greater than that reported by the media.

Sajida Mir said that the spray campaign was ineffective.

The session was adjourned for an indefinite period.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23rd, 2010.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ