ISLAMABAD: Stung by the shame of a WHO travel advisory against Pakistanis being possible polio carriers, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday committing all its members to “monitor and implement” polio vaccination in their respective areas of influence.

The resolution, signed by all parliamentary groups present in the house at the time from both sides of the aisle, came at the end of a prolonged discussion on government steps to completely eradicate polio from the country on a motion moved by lawmaker Shazia Mari of the opposition PPP last month.

The World Health Organisation advisory came on May 5, citing Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria as countries still posing the “greatest risk of further wild poliovirus exportations in 2014” and requiring their citizens to receive polio vaccination before travelling abroad.

As the discussion on Ms Mari’s April 1 motion, continuing from a previous private members’ day of the house, now seemed like crying over spilt milk, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai sought to give substance to the move. He proposed that the house adopt a resolution to commit all its members to help anti-polio vaccination at least in their respective constituencies.

The joint resolution, later moved by Saira Afzal Tarar, Minister of State for National Health Services, followed another day of some keen discussion with members on opposition and treasury benches hurling blames on the present and previous governments. One member of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) voiced a fantastic claim of “having heard’ from unspecified sources that US drone strikes on suspected militant hideouts in the country’s tribal areas were bringing poliovirus.

The resolution said: “This house unanimously resolves that the polio immunisation programme be implemented with the greatest urgency to ensure that Pakistan is made free of this debilitating disease as soon as possible. All members of this assembly also commit themselves to monitor and implement this campaign in their respective areas of influence.”

The JUI-F, a government ally, signed the resolution along with the ruling PML-N, its ally PkMAP, and the opposition PPP, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jamaat-i-Islami and Qaumi Watan Party of Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.

Mr Achakzai invoked a verse of the holy Quran asking the faithful to help one another in goodness and piety and to not help one another in sin and tyranny when he asked members of the house to openly show their support or opposition to the anti-polio campaign to refute what he called a worldwide propaganda against Pakistan.

PPP’s Nafisa Shah made a forceful speech, calling the WHO advisory a “national shame” and saying that for Pakistan, polio was not only a health issue but also a diplomatic and national security issue requiring reforms in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and diversion of sufficient resources there.

The house also passed a resolution moved by PPP lawmaker Naveed Qamar demanding that “there should be no retrenchment of employees in any government department”, after Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed told the house that it was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s vision to eliminate unemployment in the country and that the government had no intention of retrenching staff except where a government organisation had collapsed financially.

Yet Mr Qamar, who was a senior minister in the previous PPP-led coalition government, pointed to what he called a “strong move” lately in some government organisations to start retrenchments and that it was not the first time that a PML-N government had created such a scare.

WALKOUT: MQM lawmakers staged a walkout to protest against what one of them, Abdul Rashid Godil, called a “prejudicial attitude of some people in the interior ministry” obstructing the issuance of a new passport sought by MQM chief Altaf Hussain while living in self-exile in London.

But on the advice of Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the protesters were brought back to the house by Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada, who called their demand for an early issuance of passport to Mr Hussain as just while several other opposition members advised the government against procrastinating the matter.