LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly must have rewritten history on Friday by delaying the session by three hours and 35 minutes – almost equivalent to the time allocated for the entire session on such days – and making it even worse, there were no words of regrets, or even explanation, from the speaker for delay.

Waseem Akhtar of the Opposition stood up when the session started at 5.35pm, instead of 2pm, Friday afternoon, to remind the chair of the delay: “I was wondering whether the Taliban had kidnapped the whole House, along with the Speaker.” But the chair completely ignored his sarcastic remarks to announce start of the question hour.

The real reason for the delay was a meeting of the PML-N parliamentarians across the road, at the 90 Shahrah-i-Quaid-i-Azam, where the Senate elections were discussed. The Speaker himself arrived at 5.15pm. When the media tried to ask him about the delay, he simply walked away, saying: “There were certain important matters, which needed attention.”

When the party and the chair knew about the meeting, why they kept the entire house proceedings hostage. Sher Ali Khan Gorchani, who was filling in as speaker in the absence of Rana Iqbal (who is officiating as governor), simply walked away.

The House proceedings started with 28 members – less than one-third of numerical strength needed for running it. The attendance had barely reached 50 mark when the House dispersed for 20 minutes for Maghrib prayers and only 25 members re-assembled to discuss problems of cane growers and farming in general.

As there was no use debating the subject with such a short quorum, both Treasury and Opposition agreed to postpone the discussion for another day. Ahsan Riaz Fatyana stood up to wonder why the House was being adjourned without going through the official business. But the Chair, sensing his mood, quickly announced adjournment till Monday afternoon, preempting Fatayana’s plan to point out quorum and embarrass the Treasury.

Earlier, during a short question hour, where the entire question list was exhausted, Malik Nadeem Karmran, minister for Zakat and Ushr, told the House that now subsistence allowance would be given to deserving people through electronic transfers, through a telecom company rather than tedious bank transfers.

“First a pilot project was run in three districts; it was later expanded to 18 and today (Friday) morning, it has been extended to the entire province. The department also plans to involve the rich, who can contribute charity, by winning their confidence in the distribution of money. It has chalked out plans and is meeting people at various levels to let them know how transparently department operates, and how can their money safely reach the deserving candidates.”

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015

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