KARACHI: On the fourth day of general discussion on the 2014-15 budget, legislators from across the house highlighted the need to implement the city mega projects which had been planned a decade ago.

Besides the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, lawmakers from other parties in the house said that if the schemes suggested by legislators were not made part of the annual development programme, it would send a message to the people that as the citizens had not voted for the ruling party, their schemes were ignored.

On Thursday, when the house was called to order by Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani at 10.30am, by a motion the questions hour was put off to take up the resolution submitted by the MQM two days back. After the adoption of the resolution when some more members rising in their seats tried to move their resolutions out of turn, parliamentary affairs minister Dr Siknadar Mandhro drew the attention of the chair towards the rules of business which did not allow taking up any resolution during the budget session.

The speaker explained that the resolution on the Lahore tragedy was submitted to him three days back, that was why he allowed it, and gave the floor to Dr Seema Zia of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf to initiate discussion.

She termed the budget a document of claims and jugglery of words and unrealistic. She pointed out that Rs11,000 was proposed as the minimum wage in the budget but it was not enough even to meet the expenses of a four-member family.

She criticised the imposition of sales tax on education and diagnostic laboratories and other services while agriculture was ignored and Rs5 billion subsidy was allocated for the agriculturalists whose contribution to the revenue was nominal.

She said in a civilised society the ratio of direct taxes was 65 per cent while indirect taxes remained 35 per cent, but the Sindh government had been collecting 90 per cent indirect taxes.

When she criticised of naming of many institutions after the top PPP leadership ignoring the services of chief minister Qaim Ali Shah and Nisar Khuhro and others, there was uproar in the house.

She deplored that the constituency she represented was paying the highest taxes, but her constituents got neither water supply, nor roads as half of them were closed for VIPs security and others were in a dilapidated condition.

Syed Murad Ali Shah of the PPP said that despite allocation of huge funds for uplift schemes, no change was visible on the ground because there was no system of proper accountability to check misuse of funds.

Saleem Bandhai of the MQM appealed to the chief minister to approve a special package for Sukkur.

Samar Ali Khan of the PTI said although the chief minister speech was quite inspiring for him, the budget documents disappointed him as no serious efforts were made to provide basic necessities of life to the people.

He called for the withdrawal of the proposed taxes.

Imtiaz Ahmad Shaikh of the PML-F said Rs800 million was allocated to build eight kilometres of roads and asked for the identification of the road which would cost Rs100 million a kilometre.

He termed the reverse osmosis plants on which Rs35 billion had been spent as mother of all scandals, pointing out that every department had ordered purchase and its installation to only one company.

Naheed Begum of the MQM suggested that in the distribution of development funds among districts the formula of NFC Award be applied to redress the grievances of the people of other districts.

Sorath Thebo of the PML-N said the education system in Sindh was about to collapse.

Erum Azeem Farooqui of the MQM said if the budget had been prepared four/five months beforehand, it could prove an initiative of change for the better.

Nusrat Sahar Abbasi sought reasons for the non-implementation of development schemes such as the Hyderabad clean water supply project for which Rs930 million had been given by the federal government in 2005.

The house, which was called to order at 10.30am, was adjourned for Friday at 3.30pm.

Lahore tragedy

The Lahore tragedy echoed in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday when two resolutions, tabled by Khwja Izharul Hasan and others of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and another by Sharmila Faruqui of the Pakistan Peoples Party were taken up for consideration and after a brief discussion when put to the house, were passed with a majority.

During the discussion on the MQM resolution there was an exchange of harsh remarks between lawmakers on the treasury and opposition benches.

In the resolutions, condemning the attack on the offices of Minhajul Quran by the Punjab police in which more than 10 persons, including two women, were killed, expressing sympathies with the families of the victims the assembly demanded that the Punjab government take immediate and stern action against officials involved in the killings and torture of people and provide the best possible medical treatment to all the injured.

Tabling the resolution, Izharul Hasan of the MQM and Nisar Ahmad Khuhro of the PPP and others condemned the tragedy and called for a transparent inquiry into it.

Mr Hasan said Khwaja Saad Rafique behaved irresponsibly by talking against MQM chief Altaf Hussain. He warned the PML-N leaders to be cautious while talking about leaders of other political parties.

Leader of opposition Shaharyar Mahar, belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, and PML-N parliamentary party leader Irfanullah Khan Marwat and others condemning the tragedy in Lahore said its judicial inquiry had been ordered as such it would not be appropriate to politicize the issue.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2014