LAHORE, July 18: It was a hard day for Rana Tauqeer Nasir, parliamentary secretary for the planning and development (P&D), at the Punjab Assembly; he was unprepared, incoherent and inarticulate.

As the session started on Wednesday, some two-and-a-half hours late than its scheduled time (because PML-N president Nawaz Sharif was holding a party meeting at his Model Town residence) and lasted for even less time, the parliamentary secretary was in for trouble. Even the chair had to remind him umpteen times that he was off the mark.

“Perhaps you need to rehearse before coming to the House,” the Speaker admonished Mr Nasir at one point of time. Not only Samina Khawer Hayat of the Opposition, but Sheikh Allauddin of the Treasury also got frustrated when they kept repeating their question, but the secretary was unable or unwilling to “understand and respond”.

During the Question Hour, the Chair asked at least three times to the secretary, “Get information on the question and inform the House tomorrow.”

The Opposition, on a question regarding the Bank of Punjab and an alleged fraud in it, asked the Chair to form a House Committee. The request was, however, refused as the matter “being already under investigation.”

Mr Allauddin wanted to know about the status of information technology department and its financial health, which the secretary did not know.

“The answer to this question came in 2010, whereas the department was devolved to different departments in 2011. Thus, we have no information about it. Even when it was with the Punjab government, there was no balance sheet,” he insisted.

It provoked Sheikh, who wanted to know under which head the department got the funds if there was no balance sheet.

“It is a plain lie, which secretary wants us to believe. He is misleading the House,” an adamant Sheikh insisted. Soon the Opposition joined the chorus, adding a few more decibels to the pandemonium.

Later, the Punjab Assembly passed around 11 bills, which were returned to it after Governor Sardar Latif Khosa objected to them.

The bills, which now stand as laws, included Parks and Horticulture Bill, the Punjab Animals Slaughter Control (amendment) Bill, the Punjab Curriculum Authority Bill, the Disposal of Land by Development Authorities, the Punjab Agriculture Universities Bill, the University of Health Sciences, the King Edward Medical University Bill, the Information Technology University Bill, Punjab Government Servant Housing Foundation, the Punjab Court of wards (amendment) Bill and the Punjab Civil Servant (amendment) Bill.