ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: The government’s policy to privatize the telecommunication sector came under fire in the National Assembly on Monday at the start of a debate on a government bill designed to facilitate the process.
Members from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance and the People’s Party Parliamentarians joined their voices to oppose the Pakistan Telecommunications (Reorganisation) (Amendment) Bill before the house was abruptly adjourned until Tuesday morning.
Chairperson Mehnaz Rafi of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), who was presiding over the proceedings while Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain had gone to his chambers to hear a reported compromise between two opposition members involved in last week’s scuffle, adjourned the house until 10:00am on Tuesday immediately after giving the floor to a second MMA member to speak in the general debate on the bill, or its first reading.
The speaker had earlier told the house he would allow members to air their views on issues of concern through points of order for half an hour after finishing the day’s agenda following a two-day weekend recess.
But Ms Rafi did not wait for the speaker to return from his chamber and cut the proceedings short even though it was still early in the evening.
Opposition sources said the move was aimed at either avoiding adjournment because the 342-seat house did not seem to have a minimum of 86 members, or to pre-empt a possible announcement of a compromise deal reached between the MMA’s Qari Gul Rahman and Krishan Bheel of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
PPP member Aitzaz Ahsan, the main opposition speaker on the bill, accused the government of giving up essential state responsibilities to allow what he called unrestricted freedom to capitalists and investors to defy contracts as had happened in the privatization of the PTCL.
He called for strengthening the contract-enforcement machinery and said if the state shunned its responsibilities in education, health and telecommunication sectors, “a time may come when people will ask: what is the use of the state?”
MMA member Farida Piracha, who opened the debate after Information Technology Minister Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari moved the bill for consideration, criticized expansion of the mobile telephone business in the country, saying that such investment was not needed in this sector especially since people were deficient in basic necessities like food.
PPP member Ghulam Murtaza Satti complained about an increase in unemployment due to the PTCL privatization, which has been in the doldrums after the UAE’s Etisalat company failed to make the full payment by the stipulated deadline.
Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan, in response to a call-attention notice from five PPP members, assured the house that the federal government would help the Sindh provincial government in counter the outbreak of the deadly viral haemorrhagic fever.
He said seven people had died in what he called “a serious outbreak” of the Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever from a total of 169 suspected patients admitted to six hospitals in Karachi.
The minister said Sindh health authorities would have to do a lot, particularly in the field of hygiene, to avoid the risk of the disease and added: “We will assist the provincial government”.
The PPP members — Ms Fauzia Wahab, Mrs Belum Hasnain, Mrs Khalida Mohsin Qureshi, Mrs Yasmeen Rehman and Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho — had drawn the minister’s attention to rapidly spreading cases of Congo and dengue fever in Karachi.
