This session is adjourned

Nighat Orakzai walks out of assembly thrice, taking other opposition leaders with her.

PESHAWAR: The women of the opposition benches walked out while ministers exchanged heated words with each other at Tuesday’s provincial assembly session. All the commotion forced the house to not go ahead with its set agenda and the session was adjourned.

It all happened after the MPAs returned from the Zuhr prayer break and the adviser for higher education, Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, drew the house’s attention towards Pakistan Peoples Party’s Nighat Orakzai and her resignation from house committees.

Previously, Orakzai had expressed that women lawmakers were not given membership of important committees of the house and in protest, she resigned.

Ghani informed the house a special committee created to investigate allegations made by a female student about sexual harassment at University of Peshawar (UoP) was to meet on March 12, and Orakzai, who is one of the members, had informed the department she would not be attending the meeting as she had sent in her resignation. Ghani added since Orakzai had raised the issue at the assembly, it is her responsibility to attend the meeting and share the evidence she claimed to have.

An annoyed Ghani then said, if she [Orakzai] was not going to attend the committee’s proceedings in the first place, then why waste the assembly’s time with a lengthy discussion and process of forming a committee.

In her defence, Orakzai said she had resigned as she felt the government discriminated against her for being a woman. Women MPAs were not included in committees such as the Public Accounts Committee and were discriminated against over development funds, she claimed.

At this point Minister for Information Shah Farman stood up and said both issues were separate and should not be linked. He said the funds were given on a territorial basis, and he would talk to the chief minister about the matter.

Farman went on to talk about ‘functional specialisation’ and said that women MPAs may get funds for women-specific issues. He added it was announced some days ago that Rs10 million would be given to 99 lawmakers of the house for irrigation schemes.

Qaumi Watan Party’s Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli took exception to Farman’s remarks about functional specialisation; she said it was discrimination against women and a negative change was taking place towards the women.

However, Farman stuck to his guns and said it would be at his discretion to give funds to anyone he wished. By this time, Orakzai had walked out twice – once the opposition members had brought her back. The second time she stormed out after throwing sheets of paper in the air, members from the opposition and treasury had to bring her back.

Awami National Party’s parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak tried to sooth frayed nerves but with little luck. Deputy Speaker Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi gave the floor to the adviser on food, Qalandar Lodhi, who said in previous governments, women’s funds were collected by one minister who later disbursed this amount among the lawmakers.

This further infuriated Orakzai, who tried to interrupt Lodhi which led to an exchange of heated words between the two. Orakzai and other members from the opposition walked out of the assembly.

The session was adjourned till Wednesday afternoon (today).

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2014.