LAHORE, June 17: The joint opposition in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday boycotted the debate on budget, and walked out of the house to express solidarity with the National Assembly’s opposition which had boycotted the federal budget session to protest against the LFO.
The protesters chanted slogans “go Musharraf go” and “no LFO no” while the members of the treasury benches stood silent. Speaker Afzal Sahi continued proceedings of the house amid rumpus.
Except opposition leader Qasim Zia, Rana Sanaullah and Asghar Gujjar, all the opposition members walked out of the house immediately after the proceedings started with recitation from the Holy Quran, and pointed out lack of quorum to the chair.
The chair directed ringing of bells for five minutes, but to no avail. Then the opposition offered the chair completion of the quorum and called back its members present in the lobby.
As the proceedings started again, Rana Sanaullah, Rana Aftab and Qasim Zia stood on points of order one by one and started criticizing the LFO and the federal government’s attitude. However, the speaker expunged all these remarks. After that the opposition members again walked out of the house and held a protest demonstration outside the assembly building.
Later, Qasim Zia told newsmen that provision of funds by the government to the opposition MPAs did not mean that they had surrendered their right to protest.
According to Rana Sanaullah, the elected representatives also had a commitment with the masses about the supremacy of the constitution.
Mr Zia said the protest would go to the union council level until the government did not adopt ‘democratic’ and ‘constitutional’ attitude.
He said instead of initiating new projects in the budget, the government had cut funds for many ongoing schemes. The incumbent provincial finance minister, Sardar Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak, and former minister Tariq Hameed had started their budget speech with Gen Pervez Musharraf’s name. “This shows mere change in faces. In fact, (Gen) Musharraf is ruling the country,” he added.
He said the government had announced that it would set up 60 model community schools for girls. Mr Hameed had announced that the project had been initiated in 1998 under the name of the Girls Primary Project and so far 362 girls primary schools had been converted into community schools. Work on 156 more was continuing, he said.
About the provision of edible oil to the primary girls’ schools students in eight districts as an incentive to parents, he said it was not a new scheme as the project of distributing 1,500 ton edible oil among the girl students had been announced in the last budget.
Mr Zia said the government had not allocated any funds for the teachers, adding Rs80 million had been earmarked for them in the last budget. It had also failed to apportion any amount for training of teachers by foreign experts, he regretted.
He said last year Rs252.6 million had been earmarked for the technical education, but the amount had been reduced to Rs182 million in the current budget.
He also said the only project the government announced for the women, constituting 52 per cent of the population, was the construction of a sports stadium for them. Even for that project there was no mention of any allocation of funds in the budget documents.
He said work on most of the irrigation projects suggested in the budget was already going on. Funds had been released for these projects, he added.
Last year, the government had earmarked Rs1.20 billion for the promotion of small industry in the province, but this year the allocation had been reduced to just Rs300 million.
The all important social sector had been ignored, as no new project in this had been announced, he said.
He said the labourers had been ignored in the budget. There was also no mention how the 15 per cent raise in the government employees’ salaries would be met, he said.