PESHAWAR, May 7: The NWFP assembly on Wednesday urged the government to finance the Gomal Medical College just as it had done so in the case of Saidu Medical College.
The government’s act of not treating the two on a par in this respect was described by a member as a manifestation of its “double standards.”
The session was presided over by Speaker Bakht Jahan Khan.
Speaking on a point of order, PML-N’s Anwar Kamal Marwat drew the attention of the house towards the plight of GMC’s students. He said the two medical colleges, GMC and SMC, were founded on the same day and faced with the same problem of recognition by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.
The government had doled out Rs6,200,000 to the SMC to fulfil the requirements identified by the PMDC, but it ignored the GMC, he added.
The government, he said, should give equal treatment to both the colleges as they had not been recognized by the PMDC. The “step-motherly attitude” of the government would further complicate the matter, he said, adding that he was ready to give out of his (MPA) funds to the GMC.
ANP’s Bashir Ahmed Bilour also made a similar offer for the GMC and asked the government to sanction funds for the college. He said such “discriminatory moves” were not well received.
PPP-(S)’s Mureed Kazim and Nasreen Khattak exhorted the government not to ignore the GMC’s students. They said they were happy the government had accepted the demand of SMC’s students, but at the same time it was also its responsibility to look into the demands of GMC’s students.
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Malik Zafar Azam assured the house that the GMC would be provided with the necessary funds, otherwise, he said, he too would join hands with Anwar Kamal Marwat and Bashir Bilour, and contribute (money) from his own funds.
After the assurance made by Zafar Azam, the opposition MPAs did not press their demand.
Earlier, Rifat Akbar Swati of the PPP (S) drew the attention of the chair towards the non-distribution of edible oil donated by the World Food Program amongst the students in the upper parts of Hazara.
She said the oil would get expired in the month of June, but the government had not yet distributed it among the students.
She said she had repeatedly been reminding the house about the matter but the government was not taking it seriously. The donors would get a bad impression if the commodity was not distributed on time, she added.
The Speaker referred the issue to the committee concerned for immediate action.
Later, the Speaker asked the minister for excise and taxation to lay The North-West Frontier Province Urban Immovable Property Tax (Amendment) Ordinance, 2003, before the house.
When the minister presented the ordinance, PPP’s Abdul Akbar Khan opposed it, saying it had many flaws.
He said the opposition had submitted its requisition for the session on April 8, but the governor promulgated the Ordinance on April 17, which was against the parliamentary traditions. It was a “retrospectory move” on the part of the government to get the ordinance enforced from July, 2002, he observed.
He said if the government wanted to introduce any amendment to the property tax, it should have tabled a bill in the house instead of issuing an ordinance.
He also opposed the contents of the ordinance which, according to him, was full of mistakes.
Opposing the ordinance, ANP’s Bashir Ahmed Bilour said it was a negation of the unanimously-passed resolution wherein the mover had demanded abolition of the property tax. This house had adopted a resolution by Pir Mohammad Khan, and now the government was bound to abolish the property tax instead of issuing an ordinance on the same issue, he added.
He described the move as a “somersault” on the part of the government, and walked out of the house along with other opposition MPAs.