Senate panel suspends CDA director over toilet soap

Director asked to testify about the maintenance of toilets in Parliament House

ISLAMABAD: A Senate subcommittee on Finance, chaired by Senator Mushahid Hussain (PML-Q), on Monday suspended a director at the Capital Development Authority (CDA) over a lack of soap in the toilets in Parliament House.

Ostensibly, the meeting was called to discuss management and maintenance issues of Parliament House and parliamentary lodges, but it soon became fixated on a single agenda. Mashooq Ali Shaikh, the director in the CDA responsible for Parliament House, was asked to testify about the maintenance of the toilets and said that there were 38 sweepers who were tasked with cleaning them every hour and replenishing the soaps.



Senator Abbas Khan Afridi, however, refused to believe Shaikh, and asked a staff member to check the toilets, who returned after checking to announce there were no soaps there. Both senators then got angry at Shaikh, accused him of lying, and told him that he would be suspended for this offence. Shaikh then tried making excuses, including suggesting that the budget for Parliament House was not sufficient to purchase soap, a notion the senators ridiculed.

Senator Afridi claimed that he was concerned not for their own comfort but for that of the foreign dignitaries who occasionally visit Parliament House. They also released a press statement about Shaikh’s suspension.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2015.