ISLAMABAD: Two days after showing complete harmony in approving services chiefs’ tenure bills in the National Assembly, the treasury and opposition members on Thursday resumed their routine business of exchanging accusations over economic meltdown.

It all started when Minister for Communications Murad Saeed soon after the question hour took the floor to make a policy statement and boasted about the economic policies of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, highlighting the launching of Ehsaas programme and issuance of health cards.

The minister, who had apparently taken the floor to respond to the criticism of the government during the question hour on issues relating to the amnesty schemes and the government’s act of removing over 800,000 beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), had to take a flak from the opposition members, particularly those belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), who lashed out at the government’s economic policies and reminded the minister of the promises made by Prime Minister Imran Khan about jobs to one million youths and construction of five million low-cost houses for homeless people.

The lower house of parliament also witnessed a brief verbal clash between Minister for Power Omar Ayub Khan and PPP members over the issue of gas shortage in Sindh.

Govt claim about economic achievements, gas shortage, Nankana Sahib incident among key issues discussed

PTI leader and former speaker Fakhar Imam presided over the sitting for the second consecutive day in the absence of the speaker and deputy speaker and once again dragged the session by allowing members to speak on any issue of their will through “points of public importance” before adjourning the sitting till Friday morning.

At the outset, Mr Imam had to suspend the proceedings for nearly 10 minutes due to lack of quorum pointed out by PML-N’s Sheikh Fayyazuddin.

The recent protests in Nankana Sahib, the historical religious place of Sikhs, over the issue of the conversion of a Sikh girl also came under discussion, with the opposition holding the government responsible for the incident and the latter putting the blame on India for unnecessary exploiting a “minor issue” in order to divert the world’s attention from the ongoing atrocities being committed against the people of occupied Kashmir.

Murad Saeed told the assembly that the process of distribution of some 6.5 million Insaf Sehat cards was under way and by the end of this year, 10 million people would be provided these cards for availing free medical treatment.

He said that 2019 was the year of economic stability under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and 2020 would be the year of progress and development.

Mr Saeed said the Ehsaas programme was the largest in the country’s history and for it Rs192 billion had been allocated.

He said the government had removed some 2,500 officers from the list of BISP beneficiaries, out of which 1,500 belonged to Sindh.

Challenging the minister’s claim, PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel advised Mr Saeed to go outside the Red Zone area to assess the real economic situation in the country. He was of the view that before making future claims, the minister must admit that unemployment and prices of daily commodities and medicines had gone up manifold.

The middle class, he said, was at the brink of extinction and regretted that the price hike was not in the agenda of the federal cabinet meetings.

Taking the floor, Omar Ayub Khan hit out at the PPP’s provincial government in Sindh and said the people were dying in the PPP’s stronghold of Larkana due to dog-bite cases. He also held the Sindh government responsible for the gas shortage in the province, alleging that provincial authorities were not giving the Centre the right of way for laying the gas pipeline.

He claimed that Sindh produced 2,400mmcfd of gas, out of which 1,400mmcfd was being provided to Sui Southern Gas Company Limited and 500mmcfd to the fertiliser industry in Sindh. He said Punjab was only getting 250mmcfd of gas produced by Sindh.

Mr Khan claimed that the performance of the PTI-led Punjab government was far better than that of the Sindh government.

He alleged that the people of Karachi were being victimised by the PPP as they had not voted for the party due to the alleged corruption by party leaders.

Dr Nafisa Shah of the PPP asked the minister to provide statistics and data about the state of economy in the country, instead of doing “political point-scoring”.

“Tell us, how many people have been removed from different departments and how many factories have been closed in the country,” she said, claiming that the government due to its economic policies had pushed nearly 20 million people below the poverty line.

Dr Shah termed the removal of beneficiaries from the BISP list without carrying out any survey a “big scandal”. She also blamed the federal government for the increase in dog-bite cases, saying that import of dog-bite vaccines was the responsibility of the Centre. She said that dog-bite cases were being reported from all parts of the country, but Sindh was being singled out on political grounds.

Amnesty scheme

Earlier, during the question hour, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan told the house that some 76,000 people had taken benefits from three different amnesty schemes announced by the previous PML-N government, whereas over 124,000 people had taken benefit from the scheme announced by the PTI government last year.

In reply to a question asked by PML-N’s Tahira Aurangzeb, the house was informed that there were 76,598 beneficiaries of the Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act 2018, 6,179 of the Foreign Assets (Declaration and Repatriation) Act 2018 and 7,575 beneficiaries of the Return of Income under Ninth Schedule Part I, 2015.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2020