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| 09 April 2004 | Friday | 18 Safar 1425 |
National Assembly prorogued
ISLAMABAD, April 8: President Pervez Musharraf prorogued the National Assembly on Thursday after an unusual temper-cooling sitting where Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain allowed members to speak on any thing under the sun without caring for rules governing the lower house proceedings.
At one point, the speaker would allow a member to speak about stoppage of work on bridges in his Nowshera constituency in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). But at once he would allow another to raise a complaint about environmental damage near Rawalpindi.
Then he would go to another subject without the finishing the previous, then come back to environment, and then to a call attention notice on alleged wrongdoing of recent plane purchases by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
This is how the proceedings went on for about four hours after the question-hour of the last sitting of the assembly's 32-day session. The speaker repeatedly said he was trying to "improve the environment" in the house by allowing members to make speeches on points of order, after a day of high tempers when he was accused of bulldozing the government's key National Security Council (NSC) Bills that was passed amid an uproar by protesting opposition parties.
Most members on both the treasury and opposition benches seemed to enjoy the wanton proceedings, which were in sharp contrast to Wednesday's finger-pointing angry exchanges between the speaker and several opposition members, who accused him of partiality in support of the ruling coalition. But the situation was disgusting for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q's back-bencher M.P. Bhandara, who has often urged the chair to strictly apply rules of procedure and conduct of business that allow members to raise points of order only when there is a violation of the rules.
"Indiscipline is spreading in this house," Mr Bhandara told the chair. "You must have discipline in the house otherwise this house will not work." The speaker agreed with Mr Bhandara but said he had relaxed the rules to "improve the environment in the house".
"Let me conduct the house in my style," the speaker said repeatedly when some members complained about switching over to another point without disposing of the first.
Despite this, substantial discussion took place on five PPP members' call-attention notice on the PIA's recent purchase of eight Boeing 777 planes at what they called exorbitant prices, as well as on complaints of environmental damage and pollution in various parts of the country and MMA's objections to alleged deletion of some Quranic verses from some school curriculum books.
Parliamentary secretary for defence Tanvir Hussain denied any wrongdoing in the plane deal in which he said the PIA had paid $120 million apiece against a quoted price of $190 million and justified the choice of Boeing-777 against Airbus-340 on the basis of cost effectiveness. But this was disputed by the PPP members, who said 10 A-340 planes could have been bought for the same price. The call-attention notice authors, led by Sherry Rehman from Sindh, kept waiting in vain for more explanations on the issue after the speaker switched to other points before reading out the president's house prorogation order.
The chair sidestepped a suggestion made by PPP members and supported by PML-Q's Ishaq Khakwani to constitute a committee of the house to probe the plane purchases. Minister of State for Environment Tahir Iqbal promised to send a team of officials to inquire about alleged environmental damage done by a Bahria Town housing society near Islamabad and submit its report to the house.
He said his ministry was prepared to supply liquefied petroleum gas cylinders to needy people in the NWFP and northern areas as a means to help check forest cutting for firewood.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz introduced a National Finance Corporation (Repeal) Bill while the house also adopted a motion moved by parliamentary secretary for finance Omar Ayub for the creation of parliamentary friendship groups with Canada and Ireland.
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