LAHORE, Nov 18: Facing the quorum crisis yet again, the Punjab Assembly on Friday ran through its business in a perfunctory manner. The attendance did not exceed 60 in the house where at least 93 MPs are required to conduct the business. No one pointed out a lack of quorum and the assembly was able to see another day through.

The session started almost an hour late, around 10am, when the speaker started questions about the finance, culture and cooperatives departments. Luckily, the three ministers were present in the house, but their preparation for answering the queries remained under scrutiny.

They also got away with many dissatisfactory answers, as the opposition seemed to be in an unusually generous mood.

Responding to a question from Syed Ihsanullah Waqas, the finance minister told the house that successive chief ministers during the last 14 years had spent Rs351 million as discretionary funds against their allocation of Rs334 million from 1990.

As the next question was posed, the house saw some relief from tedium and every one broke into laughter when the questioner gave a list of dramas (including funny titles) being played at the Alhamra Arts Council.

The house was also told that Punjab Arts Council had been functioning without a board of governors for the last two years. The board is constituted for three years, and the previous one was formed in 2001. A summary is lying with the chief minister for the last one and-a-half year.