September 09, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 8, 1429

GILGIT, Sept 8: Members of the Northern Areas Legislative Assembly (NALA) on Monday boycotted the proceedings of the house and staged a walkout to block the budget debate in protest against interference of the bureaucracy in the budget preparation and its allocations.

The house had resumed business after three days and was supposed to debate on the budget 2008-09.

The house proceedings were shortly suspended after member from Ghizer, Sultan Madad pointed out discrimination in distribution of uplift funds and said the practice had been going on for years.

He also criticised the Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas division, adding it had no right to identify the uplift projects for Northern Areas because it had no idea what the people of the region needed and what were their requirements.

He asked other lawmakers not to accept the budget statistics which he said were totally against the wills of the public.

Technocrat Mohammad Aslam also expressed the same view and looked more perturbed over the procedure adopted for identification of projects and their inclusion in the ADP.

Later, both the members staged a walkout followed by the entire house except the advisers. Speaker Malik Mohammad Miskeen suspended the proceeding for two hours.

However, later he had to adjourn the session for two days to meet again on Wednesday as none of the members returned to the house.

CE, advisers expelled from PML-Q: President Pakistan Muslim League-Q Abdul Wahid has announced that chief executive Northern Areas, six advisers and those members who supported Asif Ali Zardari’s candidature as president had been expelled from the party.

Chief Executive Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan and six advisers belonging to the PML-Q had supported the candidature of Asif Zardari for presidency.