June 24, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1427

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LAHORE, June 23: The Punjab assembly on Friday passed the Punjab Finance Bill 2006 with the majority vote of treasury benches, adopting the provincial budget for 2006-07.

The schedule of authorised expenditure for the fiscal year 2006-07 duly signed by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi was also laid in the house where opposition MPA Rana Aftab earlier made remarks against Speaker Afzal Sahi’s conduct on Thursday and created a rumpus.

PPP elderly MPA Sagheera Islam who thumped desks vociferously during the commotion fainted as her blood pressure shot up, and was taken to hospital by the ruling party’s front-line attacker, Dr Farzana Nazir.

The finance bill was aimed at reduction in court fees, rationalisation of stamp duties on financial instruments, and expansion in the scope of exemptions already given under the Punjab Sales Tax Ordinance-2000.

The authorised expenditure indicated over Rs331 billion as grants made by the assembly as against the Rs274 billion volume of the announced budget. And the Rs50 billion required to meet the expenditure charged upon the provincial consolidated fund raised the total figure to Rs382 billion.

Finance Minister Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak later told reporters that the Rs331 billion grants included around Rs36 billion of the bank loans the provincial government would obtain for procuring food items like wheat, and Rs21 billion capital amount. These two figures were not included in the proposed budget, he explained.

The opposition members did not notice the difference in the figures. They also did not press for the proposed amendments to The Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill-2005. Law Minister Raja Basharat requested the speaker to consider the amendments as withdrawn, and subsequently the treasury benches passed the bill with a majority vote. The “cooperation” was repaid by the law minister soon after as he did not oppose a motion by MMA’s Chaudhry Asghar Ali Gujjar, seeking an amendment to the rules of procedure of the provincial assembly. The minister requested the speaker to keep the motion pending saying it would again be presented for adoption after evolving a consensus on it.

The proposed amendment said: “Head of parliamentary party means a member of the parliamentary party chosen by it as the head, and included any other member of the parliamentary party, authorised by it to act in the absence of the head as, or discharge the functions of the head, inter alia, for the purposes of Article 63-A of the Constitution relating to disqualification of a member of the assembly on the grounds of defection.”

Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi sat in the house for a while and left when PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah was cornering the treasury benches on constitutional points regarding the permissibility of two government resolutions, authorising the parliament to make a law and amend another. The resolutions were subsequently passed with majority vote of the treasury members.

The first resolution was moved by revenue minister Gul Hameed Rokhri, authorising the parliament to pass a law to regulate the setting up of the coordinated and comprehensive National Disaster Management System and provide for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

The second resolution was moved by agriculture minister Arshad Khan Lodhi again authorising the parliament to amend the Seed Act-1976.

Both the resolutions were based on Article 144 of the Constitution but were opposed by Rana Sanaullah. His opposition on constitutional grounds particularly confused Mr Lodhi who looked unprepared for the hindrance. The law minister intervened to rescue Mr

Lodhi but without any solid reason that could justify especially the second resolution.

Rana Sana said under the Constitution, provinces could frame laws which were not on the federal or concurrent lists. The province could itself make the law about the National Disaster Management System, he said and added that the matter was related to the provincial autonomy and the federal government should leave it up to the provinces.

He said the federal government had already encroached upon the law-making rights of the provinces by introducing Police Order-2002, and the Local Government Ordinance, which were provincial subjects.

The provinces could not even amend these laws without the approval of the president and the condition, he said, had been placed for weakening units of the federation.

The law minister said Sindh and the NWFP had already passed the same resolution for legislating on the disaster management system to be established at the federal level. Punjab had established a related body through legislation in the assembly.

To another objection raised by Rana Sanaullah, the minister said the resolution was being passed after consultation with Punjab, which would again peruse draft of the law before its adoption by the parliament.

While rescuing Mr Lodhi, the law minister said the federal government itself was seeking agreement of the provinces for amending the Seed Act.

To this, the PML-N’s lawyer MPA replied that under Article 144 of the Constitution there was no need to seek authorisation from the provinces to amend a federal act already passed by the parliament. The parliament could independently amend an act passed by it, he said.

When the law minister insisted that the resolution was not illegal, Rana asked the speaker to take notice of it as custodian of the house as it was unconstitutional.

The speaker acted otherwise and allowed the treasury benches to pass the resolutions, making the law minister heave a sigh of relief.

PANDEMONIUM: Earlier, the house witnessed a rumpus in the very beginning of the session when PPP’s Rana Aftab regretted that the speaker had not allowed the opposition members on Thursday to reply the outbursts of MPA Fayazul Hasan Chohan against the PPP and PML-N leaders.

Mr Chohan got elected to the provincial assembly on the MMA ticket, and had later joined the ruling party. Rana said conditions would not improve in the country till the cessation of adoption of each other’s disloyal members by the political parties.

Rana said the government could have adopted the cut motions even on Friday but it seemed that the speaker had allowed their approval in the absence of the boycotting opposition members on Thursday to appease the chief minister.

“I regret your conduct and lodge my protest over it,” he said, prompting a couple of ministers to rise and condemn his remarks.

But before Mr Chohan could stand to defend himself, the opposition members, particularly the women, created a commotion.

Raja Basharat condemned Rana and said he should either seek an apology from the chair for his remarks or the treasury benches would move a resolution to demand cancellation of his assembly membership.

Food Minister Chaudhry Iqbal and Communication Minister Chaudhry Zaheer followed the suit, condemning Rana’s remarks.

In the meantime, Mr Chohan tried to respond but his voice was overwhelmed by the rumpus created by the opposition women.

PPP’s Qasim Zia said the opposition should have also been permitted to reply to the criticism by Mr Chohan. “We do take direction from Ms Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif because they are national leaders but they (the government) takes orders from the GHQ,” he alleged.

When the law minister protested, Qasim Zia said he was ready to seek apology from the speaker for Rana’s remarks. But, he said, the minister should also accept the mistake made by the government on Thursday (by passing the cut motions without the opposition.)

Finally, the speaker intervened and said by boycotting the session the opposition, and not the government, had violated the agreement on smooth functioning of the house during the budget session.

He said by hearing audio recording of the session it could be ascertained whether Mr Chohan or anyone else had used any unparliamentary word. Rana Aftab became emotional on a point of order without allowing the speaker to reply.