KARACHI: Amid another walkout staged by three major opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly, the house discussed the country’s politics and political victimisation in a resolution marking the 80th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the old Sindh Assembly Building on Monday.

At the outset, Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari announced Ques­tion Hour when Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Khurram Sher Zaman rose and sought the chair’s permission to speak on a point of order.

The chair said he could raise any issue once business of the day was over.

Mr Zaman, however, refused to sit back on his seat. He said the issue he wanted to discuss was hugely important and merited being given special treatment before any item on the agenda was taken up.

The chair asked him again to wait until the order of the day was followed in full beginning of Question Hour was declared.

The house business ran smoothly for three hours following opposition’s boycott

First, members belonging to the PTI stood up and then their partners in the federal government and the provincial assembly belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and the Grand Democratic Alliance also rose on their seats.

Noisy protest

They began protesting loudly against the chair’s order, chanting slogans against the government and tore papers available on their desks.

MQM-P’s Mohammad Hussain requested the chair that the agenda be suspended for a while and the PTI lawmaker should be duly listened to.

Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh said the members in the three large opposition parties would show up in the house only to create noise and disturbance.

He quipped: “Whatever you do, you will not get PAC [Public Accounts Committee],” referring to the opposition’s demand to make its leader as head of the premier house body to keep an eye on government’s financial activities.

Barring two members of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan and the sole member of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, the rest of the opposition kept chanting slogans when Ms Laghari asked Arif Jatoi of the GDA to read out his question as per the agenda.

Mr Jatoi cupped his hands on his ears signalling that it was hard for him to take up his question because of noise. He asked the chair to restore order in the house.

The deputy speaker said she could listen to him in perfect order despite the noise and asked him again to go ahead with one of the three questions he had asked pertaining to the environment department. Mr Jatoi, however, opted to keep mum.

The opposition got enraged further when a member from the treasury rose and asked the question on behalf of Mr Jatoi. It was the beginning of the same strategy that the government had adopted on Friday to play the ‘constructive opposition’.

The opposition members, unlike the past four sittings, did not stay for long in the house and staged a walkout.

The opposition boycotted the rest of the sitting, which continued for three hours, and did not return.

Treasury asks questions on opposition’s behalf

The PPP’s members asked questions on behalf of the original movers and got answers from Environment Minister Taimur Talpur.

One of the questions was also asked by MMA’s Abdul Rasheed, who said in the absence of the rest of the opposition, it was his responsibility to play opposition to the government.

Education and Culture Minister Sardar Shah took up the issue of the continuous erosion of the land of Sindh by the sea and said so far at least 2.4 million acres of Sindh’s deltaic land had been devoured by the sea because the required water downstream Kotri Barrage was not being allowed by the Indus River System Authority.

“There is a study by the Institute of Oceanography which says districts of Thatta and Badin will be history by 2040 if the required water is continuously being denied to the delta and a decade later the same will happen with Karachi,” said Mr Shah.

He said that the Sindh government’s relevant departments should get a study conducted regarding the impact on the province due to denial of water to the Indus delta for which international agencies and credible national institutions should chip in.

“This study will help us in showing the world what is the real situation in our deltaic regions.”

Minister Talpur said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had already tasked him to conduct a similar study to counter the continuous sea erosion problem. He added that his department was already busy in getting the task accomplished.

PPP’s Ghazala Siyal moved a resolution greeting the members on the 80th anniversary of the laying of the foundation of the Sindh Assembly Building by then Governor Sir Lancelot Graham.

Qaim enlightens lawmakers of PA’s historic role

Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani requested former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to share his views on the occasion as he was one of the senior-most parliamentarians in the country.

Informing the new members about the resolution that the Sindh Assembly had adopted for the creation of Pakistan, Mr Shah, however, was bitter when he did not hide his gloom over the current political situation in the country.

“Now, fundamental rights are being crushed and blatant violations of the Constitution are the order of the day,” he said.

He appreciated former president Asif Zardari’s government that he said gifted 18th Amendment to the country and wondered why certain people were not happy with the exemplary autonomy to the provinces, which was even not in place during the Raj.

Mr Shah, who headed the provincial government thrice since 1988, said the 18th Amendment was a document that assured prosperity to the country.

Several other members spoke about the resolution in which they also discussed the arrest of Speaker Durrani by the National Accountability Bureau and expressed their dismay over “partisan accountability” being practiced in the country.

Mr Durrani said Sindh had the history of democracy of 5,000 years. “We had an assembly in Moenjodaro era as well. And, we had an efficient local government system then too,” he said.

Earlier, responding to a calling-attention notice, Minister Shaikh said work on the establishment of a state-of-the-art forensic lab had already begun while the Sindh Forensic Science Agency had been established as well.

Health Minister Azra Pechuho, responding to another calling-attention notice, said she would launch an inquiry into the death of twins who had been wrongly referred to the Civil Hospital by doctors at the Lyari General Hospital despite the fact that they had the facility of C-section.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2019