KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly through a unanimously passed resolution rejected the federal government’s move to recover gas levy under the title of ‘gas infrastructure development cess’ from gas consumers in the country.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Khairun Nisa Mughal, who tabled the resolution during the proceedings of the house on Monday, strongly criticised levy of the cess on consumers through an ordinance and opposed a 120-day extension in its validity arguing that it was negation of Article 172 of the Constitution. She demanded immediate withdrawal of the ordinance.

Also read: Cess on gas consumers revived

Speaking on her resolution before it was tabled, Ms Mughal said the federal government must not take such steps that were bound to undermine provinces’ economy and overburden the masses. She observed that the federal government had neither succeeded in breaking the begging bowl nor did it manage to bring an end to power loadshedding in the country. It had even failed to disburse provinces’ due share in the divisible pool, she added.

The lawmaker reminded the Centre that under the 18th constitutional amendment, recovery of cess was the responsibility of provinces, and argued that by issuing the ordinance, the federal government had violated the constitution.

NFC reports

Senior Minister for Education and Literacy Nisar Khuhro, in the absence of Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sikander Mandhro and Finance Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, presented to the house the reports on biannual monitoring of the NFC Award implementation. The reports pertained to the period July-December 2012 and January-June 2013. He also presented the Oct-Dec 2014 report on ‘current revenue expenditure, 2014-15’, ‘current capital expenditure, 2014-15’ and ‘development expenditure, 2014-15’.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentary party leader Syed Sardar Ahmed said that the NFC Award report provided by the federal government pertained to the year 2013 and lacked the provincial government’s figures. “How can we raise an objection, if any, to a two-year-old report?” he asked, and urged the Sindh government to take up the issue of delay in providing such reports. He urged the chair to fix a date for a discussion on these reports. The request was accepted by the chair.

Patharidars

In respsonse to the call attention notice of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) lawmaker Syed Mohammed Rashid Shah, Mr Khuhro gave figures regarding kidnappings in Khairpur and the status of such cases, including recovery of hostages and killing or arrest of suspects/kidnappers.

The MPA waved a photograph of three persons sitting with Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at CM House, and claimed that they were Patharidars (a term used for harbourers of kidnappers who negotiate deals for the release of hostages).

Responding to the claim, Minister for Prisons Manzoor Wassan said that to the PML-F, the three persons were clean respectable citizens as long as they remained associated with the PML-F and now when they had joined the PPP, that party was branding them as Patharidars.

Long march by Shia families

Speaking on a point of order, PML-F lawmaker Imtiaz Shaikh appreciated the due attention paid by the provincial government to the plight of the families affected by the Jan 30 carnage at the Shikarpur Imambargah and timely disbursement of compensation. He told the house that the Shuhada Committee was leading a long march from Shikarpur to Karachi for the acceptance of certain demands. Mr Shaikh suggested that some minister be assigned to hold negotiations with the committee.

Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani said he himself belonged to Shikarpur and felt that the government was extending every possible cooperation and assistance to the affected people. “There was no justification for holding the long march,” he said, and added that the marchers wanted the province to be handed over to the army. “This cannot be done,” he emphatically said, and noted that the Rangers and police were satisfactorily carrying out an operation against terrorists.

Mr Khuhro argued that a long march could be justified only when an aggrieved party was not getting any response from the authorities over its grievance. “In the case of the Shikarpur carnage, the government has been in touch with all those affected by the Imambargah bombing,” he said.

Mr Khuhro informed the house the PPP leader Aftab Sha’aban Mirani had been told to keep in touch with the Shuhada Committee and the affected families. Their genuine issues would definitely be looked into and resolved, he said.

He advised the committee and its supporters to cancel their march as the terrorists could take advantage of the situation.

After the discussion, the chair adjourned the proceedings till 10am on Tuesday.

Earlier, when the house reassembled in the morning after a five-day break, two government bills, the ‘Sindh Arms (Amendment) Bill, 2015’ and the ‘Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2015’ were tabled for consideration and approval.

The house adopted the first one and deferred the second one to Friday.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2015

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