KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Monday echoed with extremely unparliamentary words against the leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as members belonging to both parties again traded barbs during the post-budget discussion that was actually meant for forwarding suggestions and proposals by the lawmakers for their respective constituencies.

While the PPP members in their speeches vehemently condemned the PTI-led federal government for “neglecting” Sindh in the federal budget, the PTI and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) members came down heavily on the provincial government for lack of civic and municipal facilities in the province, accusing it of ‘mistreating’ their constituencies.

The proceedings took an ugly turn when Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani turned off the microphone of GDA’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi for continuously naming the PPP leadership in her speech.

Opposition MPA criticises Murad for not delivering budget speech in the national language

A visibly irked speaker reminded the GDA member that it had been decided in a meeting attended by all parties that no one from the treasury and opposition would name each other’s leadership in their respective speeches.

“You have spoken for fixed 10 minutes and you are repeating the same things and I won’t allow this,” the chair snapped before muting Ms Abbasi’s mic that made the opposition members’ blood boil.

GDA’s token walkout

The members of GDA, PTI and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan stood from their seats and gathered in front of the speaker’s rostrum for not letting the GDA member complete the speech before the GDA staged a token walkout.

Ms Abbasi was critical of Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the finance portfolio, for presenting the budget in “English”.

“In all other assemblies, the budgets were presented in the national language but our chief minister delivered his speech in English to woo the elements known to him,” she added.

She said that the provincial government could not achieve its tax collection targets for the past four years, adding that there was billions of rupees’ deficit in the provincial budget.

She also alleged that the provincial government was selling jobs in the Sindh Public Service Commission.

PTI’s Jamal Siddiqui said that the pre-budget session was held to seek proposals of the lawmakers for their respective constituencies, but no avail.

“We gave our proposals in the pre-budget session but none of them is incorporated in the budget,” he deplored.

He said that 50 schemes of different sectors had been pending for the past 10 years.

Like other PTI members, Mr Siddiqui also hailed the federal government for federal budget saying the country’s economy witnessed ‘growth’ even during the pandemic due to the ‘dynamic’ leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

“More than Rs66 billion was disbursed amongst the needy people of Sindh under Ehsaas Programme,” he added.

‘Not a single penny’ for Karachi

PPP’s Sharmila Farooqi criticised the federal government for ‘ignoring’ Sindh in the federal budget, saying only two schemes were incorporated for the province in the central budget.

She recalled that the prime minister during his initial visits to Karachi had announced a Rs162bn package for the city but “not a single penny” was spent for the betterment of the people.

The PPP member also asked the federal government to answer where it had spent the amount received under international aid to tackle Covid-19.

“Around Rs1.5 trillion was received from international donors for Covid-19 related relief measures and we should be given answer where the money was spent,” she added.

The PPP MPA said that the provincial government allocated Rs1.5bn for purchase of Covid-19 vaccines.

PPP’s Faqeer Sher Mohammad, Pir Mujeeb-ul-Haq, Lal Chand Ukrani, Sadia Javed, Munawwar Wassan, Kulsoom Chandio, Raja Razzaq, Zia Abbas and Syed Sarfaraz Shah; PTI’s Adeeba Hassan, Dua Bhutto, Shahnawaz Jadoon, Rabistan Khan and Riaz Haider also participated in the post-budget discussion.

Later, the house was adjourned to Tuesday (today).

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2021