Punjab Assembly: Opposition walks out over power outages

House approves request for Rs56.33 billion education grant

LAHORE:

Debate on the provincial government’s demand for education and police sector grants was cut short in the Punjab Assembly on Monday as the opposition staged a walkout to protest unscheduled power outages.

Discussion on a condemnation resolution submitted earlier in the assembly secretariat against outages could not be held initially because of the absence of Law Minister Rana Sanaullah. The resolution was not taken up even after his arrival as the House moved on to discussion on cut motions regarding demands for education and police grants.

Earlier, speaking on a point of order, Leader of the Opposition Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed lashed out at the provincial government over unscheduled power outages during the Ramazan.  He had stopped his speech on a request by the speaker who asked him to wait for the arrival of the law minister.

However, he resumed the speech after a while saying 12 people had died in heat related incidents in the province.

Speaking at the assembly courtyard during the walkout, Rasheed said the government had spent Rs52 billion on Nandipur power project and yet it was unable to control electricity load shedding. He urged the Supreme Court to take notice of unscheduled outages.

Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar prayed for the souls of people who had died “owing to increase in power outages”. Debate on the Rs56.33 billion demanded for the education sector and a cut motion introduced against it by Dr Murad Raas continued for three hours.

Dr Raas demanded that instead of focusing on new enrolments the government should work for reduction of drop out rates in schools across the province. He also criticised the government for its lack of regulation of private schools. He said private schools had been increasing their fees by 10 per cent every year. He said 6,500 schools were functioning in buildings with no electricity and 2,700 in buildings without boundary walls.

Mian Aslam Iqbal said that a 2012-13 report of the Auditor General of Pakistan had found irregularities in award of funds to contractors in Daanish School projects. He said the report cited an out of procedure payment of Rs343 million to the contractor of Daanish School in Rahim Yar Khan. He also criticised the laptop distribution scheme.

Qazi Ahmad Saeed said that with the introduction of the cut motion the opposition had tried to highlight the gap between education policy and its implementation.

Other issues raised during the discussion were shortage of teachers, disparity between northern and southern districts in terms of schooling quality, de-nationalisation of convent-run schools, and lack of checks and balances in allocation of funds for advertisement of various schemes started by the chief minister. In the end the cut motion was defeated and the demand for grant passed by the House with majority.

Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad defended the Daanish School system, laptop distribution scheme and public-private partnership programmes. He said Rs15 billion had been set aside in the budget for repair work at school buildings unfit for use. He said 1,500 more schools would be established in the province under the Punjab Education Foundation initiatives. “I wish the opposition had demanded an increase in the education grant,” he said in conclusion of his speech.

Opposition later introduced a cut motion against a demand for Rs87 billion grant for the police. Discussion was underway when the speaker adjourned the session till Tuesday (today) morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2015.