Broken quorum, absence of ministers haunt treasury

Published February 21, 2015
A view of the Punjab Assembly.  — File photo
A view of the Punjab Assembly. — File photo

LAHORE: It was a sheer embarrassment for the Treasury; for a second running, it could not complete its legislative process (turning the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board ordinance into law) because it was unable to get its number right.

On two occasions, the opposition pointed the broken quorum out, and on both occasions it was found broken during the legislative reading. However, the Treasury was able to muster the elusive number of 93 (in a House of 371) first time, but it failed half an hour later when PPP’s Khurram Manzoor Wattoo pointed it out.

The speaker, who had earlier extended the time for proceeding for 30 minutes to complete the leftover process from Thursday, was left with no choice but to adjourn the House till Monday afternoon, leaving the bill in a limbo – and with it, the Treasury’s legislative performance.

It was not only for the quorum question which keeps haunting the Treasury every day, but the absence of its minister from the House is equally humiliating for it. On Friday, when the House was debating amendments in the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Bill and was supposed to convert it into law, the minister for education failed to grace the House. Instead, the minister for law was left to oppose the amendments moved by the opposition, and was at his perfunctory best; it was more of mechanical response to each proposal, which prompted Waseem Akhtar of the opposition to stand up and claims: “If this is how all proposals from the opposition were to be dealt with; why is the house wasting time and money on the process? Why the Treasury simply passes the bill of its own will and decide the fate of future generations. Theoretically, it is following parliamentary norms but violating the spirit of it by bulldozing its own version of bill. The debate was still on when the House lost the quorum and got adjourned.

Earlier, during the question hour, the provincial home minister, in response to a question, told the House that sons of former slain governor Salmaan Taseer and former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani were in Afghanistan and the government was trying to rescue them from their captors. During the response he also claimed that over 95 per cent of cases of kidnap for ransom stemmed from Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. The Punjab government has identified some gangs, eliminated some of them and was trying to control the situation.

One of the interesting points of order came from two female members, both known for their rich backgrounds, when they stood up to demand increase in their salaries, leaving the media gallery wondering -- why them? The female members do not invest in electioneering as they come on reserve seats. They hardly contribute to the proceeding. Whatever they get is more of a stipend in turn for blindly following party line. Why were they demanding increase? But of of them was fair enough to say: “The House also has some female members from the lower middle class, who need better pays.”

The demand for a raise came on the heel of already pending motions by other members for such a raise, which most of the colleagues in the press gallery thought was now more of a matter of when rather than if.

Published in Dawn February 21th , 2015

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