ISLAMABAD: A former speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Fehmida Mirza, said on Friday that the inability of parliament to solve people’s problems had provided room to other institutions to interfere in its domain.

Delivering a fiery speech in the National Assembly, she raised questions over the performance of the lower house of parliament in addressing people’s issues.

Calling parliament a ‘debating society’, she said: “Today we are complaining that institutions are not working within their constitutional jurisdictions, but if people do not get relief from parliament they will definitely knock at the doors of the Supreme Court and other institutions.”

Dr Mirza, who had run the National Assembly as speaker during the tenure of the previous Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government (2008-13), claimed that no new development work had been initiated in the constituencies of opposition members during the term of the present government. Development projects which had already been launched in these constituencies by the previous government could not be completed due to non-provision of funds, she added.

The former speaker urged the government to provide some relief to people as only a few days were left in the completion of its five-year term.

She said less populous provinces, especially Sindh, was completely ignored by the present government in terms of development works and solution of people’s problems. “Neither the federal government nor the provincial government of Sindh paid any heed to the problems of people in her constituency in Badin,” she added.

Dr Mirza said some projects for providing clean drinking water and improving the drainage system were initiated in her constituency during the previous government. Though 80 per cent work on these projects had been completed till the end of the previous government’s term, they were still incomplete because funds had not been provided by the present government for the remaining work, she claimed.

Some other members also spoke on people’s problems, including non-provision of new gas connections. The included Abdul Sattar Bachani, Sajida Begum, S.A. Iqbal Qadri, Shah Jee Gul Afridi, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Syed Ghulam Mustaza Shah, Ijaz Jakhrani and Naveed Qamar.

Parliamentary Secretary for Cabinet Division Raja Javed Ikhlas informed the house that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had decided that one million new domestic gas connections would be provided to consumers across the country.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018