ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party has expressed concerns over what it called “non-implementation” of an agreement signed by all parliamentary parties regarding the third party audit of 5 per cent blocks of census 2017.

A senior PPP leader, Taj Haider, said in a press statement that he had returned very disappointed from a meeting of the senators monitoring committee on validation of census 2017 held on Tuesday.

“The meeting chaired by Raja Zafarul Haq Sahib of PML-N cause worrisome that even the right of the people of Sindh to be counted correctly was being trampled upon by the ‘house of the federation’,” he added.

Mr Haider said an army of officials of the Statistics Division had been allowed inside the committee room, while the media had been barred from covering it.

The PPP and some other political parties like Muttahida Qaumi Movement have raised objections on census 2017 result and had demanded third-party audit of 5 per cent census blocks. However, the government seems to be reluctant to meet their demand as shortage of time before the general elections 2018 does not allow the government to conduct the third party audit of 5 per cent blocks.

“This anti-Sindh methodology had already been rejected by all political parties in an earlier meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and the consensus agreement was based on de-facto method of counting which includes everyone residing in a province,” he said.

For decades other provinces instead of creating employment opportunities locally have adopted a policy of pushing their un-employed people to the province of Sindh, Mr Haider said.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018