ISLAMABAD, March 19: Ministers came under flak in the National Assembly on Friday from political foes as well as friends, one of whom called for a prime ministerial intervention to improve efficiency of his cabinet members.

Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain also seemed to lend a keen ear to complaints about the ministers' usual absence from the house and perceived inefficiency after a token opposition protest walkout and sought advice from a senior member on the treasury benches about what should be done to remedy the situation.

On a complaint from Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party president Mahmood Khan Achakzai, the speaker advised Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, who was absent from the session at the time, to regularly take the house into confidence about the current military operation in South Waziristan.

The ministerial conduct dominated the day's proceedings before the resumption of a continuing debate on President Pervez Musharraf's Jan 17 speech to parliament. The house was sparsely attended as most members stayed away possibly to sit before television sets to watch the 3rd One-Day International between Pakistan and India in Peshawar.

Veteran ruling coalition parliamentarian Sher Afghan Niazi of the PPP-Patriots advised the speaker to ask Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to instruct ministries to provide adequate information in reply to members' questions.

He suggested what he called a 'regulatory mechanism' to ensure that ministers and parliamentary secretaries were properly briefed by their ministries about questions asked by the members.

There was no immediate response to these suggestions from the speaker, who has repeatedly complained about ministers' absence from the house and who on Thursday had branded their behaviour as contempt of the house.

Mr Achakzai complained that no government minister had informed the house about the latest situation of what he called a war going on in South Waziristan with the military reportedly using planes to bomb the area in search of suspected militants and their local protectors.

"Since last night we have been getting information only from foreign television channels," he said and suggested that the assembly members should be informed about the happenings by the foreign minister, the interior minister or the prime minister.

The speaker appeared to agree with the suggestion and said the interior minister - who made a statement on the issue in the house only on Thursday - 'should take the house into confidence'.

On a call-attention notice from five ruling party members, parliamentary secretary for defence Tanvir Hussain Syed told the house that the Pakistan International Airlines had stopped its flights to Turkmenistan's capital Ashkabad because they had become unprofitable owing to a restrictive Turkmen visa policy for visitors from Pakistan.

But he said his ministry would talk to the foreign ministry to try for an easing of the Turkmen visa policy which, according to him, had been made restrictive because of a hostile propaganda about Pakistan.

In the debate on the president's speech, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf denounced Gen Musharraf's policies, but asked him to allow an honourable return home of self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and release of her jailed husband Asif Ali Zardari.

Mr Syed, who belongs to the PPP-Patriots group, accused the previous PPP and PML-N governments of landing the country into crisis after crisis that he said had been remedied by President Musharraf.

Ms Samia Raheel Qazi (MMA, Punjab) accused the government of turning the country into an 'American colony'. The house was adjourned until 4.30pm on Monday.