ISLAMABAD: The opposition is likely to give a tough time to the government on the issue of loadshedding in the parliament as days after submitting a privilege motion in the National Assembly, Peoples Party presented an adjournment motion in the Senate on Friday on what it called ‘unprecedented’ outages in the country, particularly Sindh.

The adjournment motion was signed by PPP Senators Raza Rabbani, Farhatullah Babar, Saeed Ghani and Mukhtar Ahmed Dhamrah.

Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah on Wednesday moved a privilege motion against Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, accusing him of humiliating people and parliamentarians of Sindh by calling them “power thieves”.

Later, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif met Mr Shah and tried to pacify him on the ongoing campaign against defaulters and the remarks of Mr Ali.

Mr Shah urged Mr Asif not to remove transformers to punish a few power thieves in an area because such an action would also deprive those who regularly paid their bills.

The minister said that Sindh had to pay Wapda dues. He assured the opposition leader that the issue of loadshedding in the province would be resolved soon.

But at a press conference on Friday, the minister warned all the provinces that electricity supply would be severed if they failed to pay their dues.

When contacted, Mr Babar said the PPP backed the government for the sake of democracy but it did not mean that the party would not oppose its `anti-people policies’.

“We cannot support the government on the issues concerning people. That is the reason we are opposing the privatisation plan and the controversial Protection of Pakistan Ordinance,” he said.

“People of Sindh are suffering from frequent power breakdowns during sizzling heat and we are justified to criticise the government on the issue,” the senator said.

Development of Gilgit-Baltistan

A nine-member delegation of the Senate Human Rights Committee, which recently visited Gilgit and Hunza, submitted seven resolutions to the house on issues ranging from proposed amendments to a law to improvement in development of mining in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).

Senator Babar said the resolutions sought amendments to the GB Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009, launching of a community awareness programme for exploring mineral resources, lifting of a ban on the issuance of mining licences, increase in the number of flights to the area and introduction of labour laws, opening of Skardu-Kargil and Skardu-Laddakh roads, police reforms and promotion of tourism by allowing limited period visa to tourists on arrival in Gilgit.

The delegation headed by Awami National Party’s Afrasiab Khattak included Senators Mushahid Hussain Syed of the PML-Q, Hiadayatullah (Fata), Mr Babar, Sehar Kamran, Nasreen Jalil, Suraya Amiruddin, Khalida Mohsin and Farhat Abbas.

The Senate committee believes that the GB Legislative Assembly should be empowered and judicial system must be strengthened in the region to protect fundamental rights of people.

“The current system of appointments in the higher judiciary in GB needs to be reviewed to make the institution truly independent and strong,” Mr Babar said.

He said members of the committee were convinced that in the changing regional scenario, Pakistan’s security, economy and foreign policy issues were intricately linked to GB and Islamabad should revisit its policies about GB.