KARACHI: Opposition plans strategy for Sindh budget session
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 14: The Sindh Assembly’s budget session, scheduled for 2.30pm on Monday, is likely to witness a replay of the National Assembly, Senate and Punjab Assembly sessions where the opposition parties disrupted the speeches of the finance ministers before staging walkouts to protest against the government’s attitude on the Legal Framework Order.
The opposition parliamentary parties in the Sindh Assembly —the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Pakistan Peoples Party — have summoned their separate meetings on Sunday to make up their minds and adopt strategies for the budget session. Analysts forecast that their attitude will be no different from their colleagues in the National Assembly, Senate, and Punjab Assembly where the joint opposition, after getting their protest registered, staged walkouts after messing up the speeches of the finance ministers.
The MMA has summoned the meeting of its parliamentary party at 3pm on Sunday while the PPP will be meeting in the evening at 6pm to finalize their respective strategies for the budget session. After their separate sessions, their joint meeting is likely to be held on Sunday night or Monday morning, before the budget session at one of the committee rooms in the Assembly building.
The members of the coalition partners in the Sindh Government will also be meeting on Sunday, at 7.30pm, in the Chief Minister’s House to plan their strategy to counter the opposition so that the budget speech by Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad and laying of finance bill get through without much fuss.
Meanwhile, 24 members of the PPP have moved separate resolutions, asking the Sindh Government to request the federal government to facilitate the return of Benazir Bhutto for attending a meeting on the LFO by heads of the opposition parties.
Likewise, Provincial Minister Imtiaz Shaikh has also submitted a resolution to the speaker in which it was demanded that distribution of water be ensured in accordance to the 1991 water accord.
The resolution presented by the PPP was not likely to be taken up during the budget session according to the clause 127-A (VII): “No other business except government resolutions and legislation shall be transacted during the budget session”.
The Speaker of Sindh Assembly, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, told Dawn that an in-house TV circuit had been installed in the assembly building to improve the security system. Movements in and around the assembly building will be recorded on video.
Through it, the chief minister and speaker, sitting in their chambers, would be able to watch the ongoing proceedings. He said that the decision to install a closed-circuit system was taken by the former governor, Muhammadmian Soomro, who had formed a committee to carry out the work on repair, renovation and refurbishing of the assembly building.
The work on replacing the internal wiring and installing new generator and public address system was carried out by the committee. However, landscaping work, gardening and sandblasting work had been added which had enhanced the building in a befitting manner.
An important task which was carried out recently was the prominent display of the Pakistan Resolution, moved by G.M. Syed in the Sindh Assembly and adopted on June 7, 1943. The resolution, in brass words, has been displayed on the front wall to attract the attention of every person entering the building from its main entry point.
