ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: Speaker of the National Assembly Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Friday asked the ministers to ensure their presence in the house during the question-hour session to answer the queries of the members.

“The ministers are suppose to be in the house,” the speaker gave a ruling after no minister was available in the assembly to answer a supplementary question of a member pertaining to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The speaker asked the ruling party members as to who would respond to the question, but when no minister appeared to reply, he gave a ruling that all ministers should be present during the assembly session.

“The ministers are careless because the prime minister is not in the city,” remarked an observer.

Federal Labour Minister Abdus Sattar Laleka, however, rushed to his seat on the request of the speaker to defer the question for half an hour so that the minister concerned could come. Mr Laleka said such mistakes were always condoned in the parliament for smooth running of the house. At this Liaquat Baloch suggested that it was the responsibility of the National Assembly Secretariat to inform the relevent minister in time so that he could be present in the parliament to respond to the questions. The speaker also seconded the suggestion.

Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan informed the house during the question-hour session that a ban on import of reconditioned vehicles had been imposed to protect the local industry, but denied that the custom tariff had been reduced due to the ban. He said it was reduced as a result of overall rationalization.

He said there was no proposal under consideration to lift the ban on import of reconditioned vehicles for the reason of providing protection to the local industry.

About the delay in the delivery of locally-manufactured vehicles, he admitted that there were some problems due to huge demand of some popular and successful models despite the fact that the company was working on double-shift.

However, the government was trying to increase the production to overcome the problem of delay and payment of the premium.