KARACHI, Aug 5: The combined opposition on Saturday requisitioned the Sindh Assembly session to discuss various problems being faced by the people of the province due to the ruling coalition’s ‘incompetence’.
Addressing a news conference in the assembly’s committee room, Leader of the Opposition Nisar Ahmed Khuhro claimed that 43 PPP and MMA members had signed the requisition, which was submitted with the assembly secretariat.
According to rules, Speaker of the assembly is required to summon the session within 14 days. When Mr Khuhro was making this announcement at about 4pm, there was no indication from the government that it had moved any application in this regard. According to the calendar, the assembly is required to sit for another 30 days.
The requisition has been deposited at a time when the major coalition partners have not yet sorted out their problems despite going back to their pre-resignations position. The disgruntled elements within the PML-Q also are still not happy with their party chief Dr Arbab Rahim.
The opposition agenda includes a discussion on voters’ enrollment, the government action against teachers’ associations and the government’s alleged incompetence in meeting the chaotic situation emerging out of the recent downpour in Karachi and elsewhere in the province.
The combined opposition maintains that the people of Sindh were facing great difficulties in getting their names entered in voters’ list. It also describes the recently imposed ban on teachers’ associations as contrary to democratic norms.
The opposition wants to bring performance of the City District Government Karachi under discussion, and claims that the CDGK had failed to handle the situation during the rainfall as a result of which the entire civic system had collapsed.
The opposition also believes that the provincial government had failed to take any relief measures for the inhabitants of the coastal belt in Sindh, especially Thatta and Badin coasts, where people had been left helpless and had to undergo miseries. The opposition seeks the assembly to declare that changing status of Hyderabad city to city district government would neither benefit its residents nor would it be in the national interest.
It further maintains that the provincial government had also miserably failed in handling the situation arising out of the recent rains in Sindh.
Mr Khuhro claimed that even after the budget session, which was allegedly bulldozed by the ruling coalition to scuttle mounting criticism and public resentment over its anti-people policies, the government could have summoned the session because a host of other issues were pending a debate and some others had cropped up and needed to be addressed on a priority basis. Since the government looks the other way, the opposition had to requisition the session.
He slammed the government’s apathy towards the deepening power crisis. He also criticised the widespread damage being caused to the city’s infrastructure in the name of ‘development’.
According to Mr Khuhro, while the estranged coalition partners who owe their ascendancy to the same power that wield the whip, are least bothered about the problems being faced by ordinary people and keep sitting in Islamabad to have their pound of flesh, whether or not it is in the interest of Sindh.
Mr Khuhro pointed out that in spite of the existence of a relief commissioner, the provincial government had not yet announced any relief package for the rain-affected people, nor did it spell out any long term policy because, according to him, the coalition partners were interested more in protecting their personal and party interests than those of the people.
