QUETTA, Oct 29: The opposition in the provincial assembly has accused the government of ignoring the grievances of opposition members about the Public Sector Development Programme and warned that if ministers did not change their attitude , the opposition would requisite a session.

Speaking at a joint press conference in the opposition chamber of the assembly on Friday, opposition leaders alleged that ministers were avoiding meetings of the committee that had been formed by the speaker to take up complaints of opposition members about non-allocation of schemes to them in the uplift programme.

The leader of the opposition, Kachkol Baloch, and Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal of the Pukhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party addressed the conference. Haji Juma Khan Bugti, parliamentary leader of the Jamhoori Watan Party, and Akhtar Hussain Lango, deputy parliamentary leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, were also present on this occasion.

The opposition leader demanded that the chief minister should not release funds for the PSDP until it was revised to accommodate opposition members. He warned the government that if tenders were issued they would surround the office of the communications department.

He recalled that the opposition ended its protest in the assembly after Speaker Jamal Shah Kakar had formed a committee on August 18 which comprised members from the treasury and the opposition benches.

Mr Kachkol further stated that the speaker had convened the meeting of the committee for the fourth time to resolve the problem but the ministers were avoiding the meeting to prolong the impasse.

The leader of the opposition said that this approach would not only sabotage the objective of the committee but would also force them to protest the undemocratic behaviour of the members of the treasury benches.

He said: "We want resolution of the issues in a democratic manner or we would requisite a session of the provincial assembly to expose the designs of the ministers who want to deceive the opposition through delaying tactics."

The parliamentary leader of the PMAP, Mr Ziaratwal, said that the government had invited tenders for schemes that were going to cost Rs1.1 billion. He called upon the chief minister to cancel the tenders that were advertised in the newspapers till the time the committee revised the PSDP and allocated funds to the deserving areas.

Mr Ziaratwal accused ministers of misusing the funds the federal government had allocated for the drought-affected areas. He said that the prime minister had allocated funds to be distributed among the MPAs who were to spend them in the drought-hit areas but the government withheld the money for members belonging to opposition parties.

Mr Ziaratwal warned that if the government did not accommodate the opposition members they would have no option but to launch protests on the streets as well as in the assembly to safeguard the interest of the people.

Replying to a question, Kachkol Baloch and Mr Ziaratwal stated that the provincial government had failed to resolve the issues of unemployment, unfair allocation of funds in the PSDP, besides securing constitutional rights of Balochistan from the federal government.

MPAs Mir Saleem Khoso, Sardar Azam Musakhel, Majid Khan Achakzai, Mir Jan Mohammad Buledi, Mohammad Naeem Turyalai and Rehmat Ali Baloch attended the press conference.