KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday passed five laws — three of them related to the regularisation of doctors and other contractual employees — one of which sparked debate in the house on, as the opposition benches argued, giving a “licence to kill” to individuals driving emergency vehicles.

The Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2018 was tabled by Law Minister Zia Lanjar to amend the Provincial Motor Vehicles Ordinance, 1965 to bring the rules in conformity with modern-day needs.

Among certain provisions in the bills, which the opposition benches countered, sub-clause 5 of clause 6 in the new law sparked controversy.

You should not give licence to kill to individuals, says opposition

The new sub-section read: “No driver of an emergency vehicle shall be convicted of an offence punishable under sub-section (1) if he was responding to an emergency and was not exceeding the limit of 80km/hour.”

Initially, Opposition Leader Khwaja Izharul Hasan said the bill should be reconsidered as the controversial clause absolving individuals from conviction while driving emergency vehicles would make things complicated.

“You should legislate in line with international standards but that should not give licence to kill to such individuals,” he said.

He also objected to the provisions binding private ambulance operators to get registered with the health ministry and addition of certain “law enforcement vehicles” among the emergency means of transport.

Minister Lanjar nodded to one of the amendments suggested by the opposition leader vis-a-vis registration of vehicles being run by charities and got it omitted from the law.

Later, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Khurram Sher Zaman raised the issue again and submitted an amendment for scrapping the provision promising no conviction for the drivers of emergency vehicles.

He said the section could have been used for killing people in the garb of performing emergency duties. Most of those drivers, he added, had not even got a proper driving licence.

Khwaja Izhar said Pakistan was the place where a driving licence was the easiest thing to get.

The opposition members said special tracks and lanes for emergency vehicles were normally there in the developed world. “Such laws absolving ambulance drivers from conviction were perfectly good there because they have got all infrastructure and facilities required for running emergency vehicles. We should wait for such an amendment until we get everything else in conformity with the developed countries,” said Mr Hasan.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Syed Sardar Ahmed said exempting such drivers from conviction would be in conflict with the provisions in the Pakistan Penal Code.

Minister Lanjar opposed the amendment suggested by Mr Zaman at which the chair put the motion to the house, which rejected it.

The bill, however, was passed into law unanimously.

Earlier, the opposition benches expressed their fierce disagreement to the order of the day that showed that the government intended to introduce and consider five bills which, they claimed, were not provided to them for detailed reading.

“It is hugely unfair to include five bills for introduction and consideration at the same time when, I am sure, these documents have not been read by the treasury members as well,” said Mr Hasan. “How can we offer our inputs and amendments when we have not been provided these bills well in time?”

He claimed the government was on an election spree where it had decided to parcel out jobs or “sell them” for “very obvious agenda”.

Mr Lanjar said three of the five bills were related to regularisation of jobs for individuals already working in various government departments. He dismissed the opposition’s claim by saying no jobs were being doled out or sold. “Such figments of imagination are a far cry from reality,” he remarked.

Several members from the opposition benches kept speaking despite the fact that their mikes were turned off. Two of them came close to the chair and requested him to listen to them.

The situation was perfectly rife for a walkout by the opposition when Mr Hasan said they were, actually, not against any of those bills, but the way the government had thrust them on the members was not acceptable.

He said the government’s behaviour was such that “they will tear merit apart and dish out jobs to their polling agents, and those who will not be their polling agents will purchase them”.

Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani negated the opposition’s claim that tabling five bills before the last budget session of the assembly was unusual, adding that such a practice had precedent.

Minister Lanjar said the bills were not mala fide.

He tabled The Sindh Regular­isa­tion of Contingent Paid or Work-Charged Employees of Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) Bill, 2018 and said it would benefit the project’s 2,600 employees, who had been working on daily wages etc. This regularisation will protect families with no illegality whatsoever in the law.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional’s Mehtab Rashdi said most of the posts in the project were temporary. However, she said she was not opposed to the bill.

The bill, however, was passed into law unanimously later.

Home-based workers

The Sindh Home-Based Workers Bill, 2018 sparked a debate as well when Sardar Ahmed said the scheme to provide small plots to the cottage industries had been halted in the past. He said the bill would target millions of people engaged with home-based industry negatively when bureaucrats would be ruling the roost. He said the law would overall negatively affect the industries.

Mr Hasan said the law would open avenues for corruption for inspectors in the labour ministry.

Mr Lanjar said the home-based workers could not be helped until the sector was properly regulated.

Irum Farooque said the bill was good but it should be properly implemented.

The bill was passed into law unanimously.

Regularisation of doctors and vets

Similarly, the house unanimously passed The Regularisation of Doctors Appointed on Contract or Ad hoc Basis Bill, 2018 after a brief discussion.

The law minister said the contractual doctors had been working in the department for five years while the health ministry was still deficient in having a proper number of doctors.

MQM’s Faisal Subzwari said it should be ensured that underprivileged areas got a better deal under the law.

Education Minister Mehtab Dahar said most of the doctors who would benefit from the law were already working in areas such as Thar and other remote districts.

The house later passed The Sindh Regularisation of Veterinary Doctors Appointed on Contract Basis Bill, 2018, which was put up for reconsideration after the governor returned it to the assembly for ensuring such doctors were posted for a certain period in the areas where they worked.

The house referred The Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2018 to the relevant standing committee with the direction to return it to the house within a week.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah will present the annual budget of Sindh for fiscal 2018-19 and supplementary budget statement for 2017-18 during the Sindh Assembly session on Thursday (today).

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2018