Perks and privileges: MPAs demand lifetime diplomatic passport

Balochistan Assembly members adopt resolution for issuing blue passports to the speaker and deputy speaker

QUETTA: Provincial legislators called upon the government on Monday to issue lifetime diplomatic passports to all parliamentarians and their spouses and children. A resolution was unanimously adopted in the house, urging the federal authorities to issue blue passports to the speaker and deputy speaker of Balochistan.

Speaker Jan Mohammed Jamali chaired Monday’s session in which every single member demanded a blue passport.

Provincial Minister for Health Rehmat Saleh Baloch tabled the resolution in which he cited the Article 104 of the Constitution under 18th Amendment in which it states that the speaker is administered oath as speaker as well as governor of the province. The speaker thus holds important government office after the governor of Balochistan. Under the same constitution, the deputy speaker is second in line after the speaker for the top post. “However, in our country, the diplomatic passport is not issued to these constitutionally important persons,” he said.



Through this resolution, the assembly requests the provincial government to approach the federal government for immediate issuance of diplomatic passports.

Even as members of the treasury and opposition benches were preparing the resolution, irate farmers blocked the National Highway and RCD Highway in protest against prolonged hours of load-shedding in their localities.

The farmers said that electricity is available for only two hours a day. As a result, crops were suffering an acute shortage of water.

Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch was the first to support the demand for diplomatic passports. “We have raised this issue in the Senate before that every member should be given lifetime perks and privileges,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2015.