KARACHI: Sindh assembly to discuss sugar-related issues today
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Nov 11: The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday admitted an adjournment motion for a discussion on the start of the crushing season at sugar mills, payment of arrears to growers and fixing of the sugarcane price at Rs43 per maund.
Since Tuesday was the private members’ day, three identical motions were moved by Jam Madad Ali from the treasury and Humera Alvani and Ali Nawaz Shah from the opposition. The Sindh Assembly speaker, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, clubbed the motions together and put them before parliament who decided to take up the matter on Wednesday from 10am to noon.
However, the speaker deferred Ms Alvani’s privilege motion till Wednesday when its admissibility will be discussed. She wanted to discuss the conduct of Sindh health secretary Ashiq Hussain Memon who, according to her, had breached the privilege of the House by not meeting her twice in spite of prior appointments. She insisted that when she finally met him in her third attempt, he threw documents on the table and told her that he did not care for members of the provincial assembly.
Ms Alvani’s motion was opposed by the law minister on technical grounds. He added that the motion could not be taken up because it was not recent, as required by the rules of business. He recalled that the motion had also been moved in the last session of the assembly but it lapsed when the session of parliament was prorogued.
The House did not grant permission to Murad Ali Shah to introduce a private bill aimed at amending the Sindh Advisers (appointments, powers, functions, salaries, allowances and privileges) Act 2003.
Shedding light on his bill, Mr Shah argued that under the rules and constitution advisers could not given the status of ministers.
The law minister opposed the amendment. He pointed out that in the past advisers had been appointed under Rules of Business 1996. He added that the present advisers were appointed under the Sindh Advisers Act 2003. He recalled that the political party to which the mover of the amendment belonged had appointed eight advisers in 1989-90. The bill was defeated by 58 votes to 41.
Qamar Mansoor of the Muttahida Quami Movement introduced another private bill (No 7 of 2003) aimed at amending the Ziauddin Medical University Act 1995. The speaker declared that the bill stood introduced.
Deliberations on a private bill (No 6 of 2003) aimed at amending the Preston Institute of Management, Science and Technology Ordinance 2001 could not begin, as members of the opposition complained that they had not received a copy of the bill.
The speaker ruled that the assembly secretariat would ensure that the members of parliament received copies of the bill, which would be discussed on Monday.
Earlier, the speaker ruled that once printed questions and answers were placed at the table of the assembly, they would be deemed to have been answered and would remain part of the assembly’s proceedings of the day.
He gave the ruling on a point of order raised by the leader of the opposition through which he had contended that until the question hour was called and questions taken up, they could not be deemed to have become part of the proceedings of the day.
Disposing of the point of order, the speaker cited the example of the National Assembly where answers laid on the table of the assembly were incorporated in the proceedings.
Through different points of order, Ali Nawaz Chandio, Dr Sohrab Serki and Hameedullah Advocate of the opposition expressed concern over the failure of the authorities to provide relief to the rain victims of the province.
Senior minister Syed Sardar Ahmad made a statement saying that “we stand committed to providing relief to the rain victims. In this connection, relief committees at the provincial level and the district level had been formed which held their regular meetings”. He said the government had released the relief funds as asked by the district relief committee. He added that if any rain victim had not receive relief he should immediately contact the chairman of the district relief committee.
Through a point of order, Jam Mehtab drew the attention of the House towards the damage of the cotton crop in Upper Sindh by rains. He added that the supply of substandard seeds and pesticides had caused unrest among growers who were staging a protest. He demanded that remission be given to the growers because their cotton crop had been damaged.
Agriculture minister Arif Jatoi said that the cotton crop had suffered in recent rains and there were complaints of supply of low-quality pesticides. However, he said, the matter was under investigation.
Before the question hour could begin, Hafiz Naeem of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal complained that in his constituency no development scheme had been initiated.
