LAHORE: Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari has issued a notice to the Punjab Assembly staffers who did not report for duty at the session convened on the orders of the governor at Aiwan-i-Iqbal.

The employees of legislation, estate, reporting and security wings of the assembly have been given seven days to submit their replies to the show-cause notice or face disciplinary action.

Acting Punjab Assembly secretary Amer Habib has issued a notification directing the staff belonging to the four wings to report at Aiwan-i-Iqbal and to perform their duties there instead of at the assembly where a parallel session is being held by Speaker Parvez Elahi.

Similar directions were also issued by the law secretary, who under the ordinance promulgated recently by the governor enjoys powers of the assembly secretary in administrative affairs, last Saturday (June 18).

But the assembly staff obliged none.

Meanwhile, a discussion on the supplementary budget was opened in the governor’s convened assembly session, though opposition leader Sibtain Khan was not present to formally open the debate as per tradition because the opposition PTI and PML-Q are continuing to boycott this session.

The panel of chairmen member, Tahir Khalil, Sindhu then gave the floor to treasury MPA Azma Bukhari, who regretted that the assembly would have to pass the supplemental budget as the ousted Usman Buzdar government had already consumed the money without satisfying the house about the judicious use of the funds.

She, however, demanded the previous government be held accountable for the misuse of the supplementary budget.

She said that the Buzdar government did not seek a due share of Punjab in the National Finance Commission award.

MPA Saba Sadiq also demanded an investigation into the usage of supplementary budget and regretted that the ‘Waseem Akram plus’ put the people of the province into trouble through his imbalanced policies.

She demanded the allocation of more resources for women and children and training of the womenfolk in the livestock and small industries sector.

Maulana Ilyas Chinioti moved a resolution out of turn demanding immediate construction of Faisalabad-Chiniot Road as a dual carriageway.

Rana Ali Abbas alleged that Farah Shehzadi had a 10-acre plot worth Rs10 billion in Faisalabad.

Uswa Aftab urged the government to persuade the students to study technical education as all the children could not be made doctors or engineers. She suggested the government provide solar panels to the people on an easy-loan basis for overcoming the power shortage.Sheikh Alauddin demanded that all the suggestions being put forward by the lawmakers and the steps to be taken in this regard should be put on record.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2022