ISLAMABAD(National Times)- It was a largely non-productive and wasteful day in the National Assembly on Tuesday as lawmakers spent nearly three hours raising petty issues, mostly related to their constituencies, under the guise of \u201cpoints of order\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Speaker Ghulam Shah showed great generosity by allowing more than three dozen members to speak on issues of their choice, after announcing that the day\u2019s entire legislative agenda had been deferred under an agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deputy speaker, however, didn\u2019t elaborate on where and with whom the understanding had been reached. Later, Aliya Kamran of the opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) complained that her party was not consulted at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deputy speaker deferred the entire 58-point agenda, which included 20 private members\u2019 bills. The House, however, took up the two calling attention notices \u2014 one related to the high fees and charges being collected by private medical colleges and the other regarding persistent river erosion in Layyah district \u2014 besides unanimously passing a resolution to mark Eid Miladun Nabi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the assembly rules, a member may raise a \u2018point of order\u2019 only to point out some violations during the proceedings and generally, the chair doesn\u2019t allow the members to raise irrelevant issues under points of order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking advantage of the free rein given by the chair, the members spoke on all kinds of issues, ranging from matters of national importance to the problems relating to their constituencies. Interestingly, no government representative was there to respond to or take note of the points raised by the members. Most of the issues highlighted by the lawmakers were related to the provincial governments or the local governments that were not functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PTI lawmakers also talked about their constituency issues, but after protesting against the government\u2019s alleged failure to implement the Supreme Court\u2019s verdict regarding medical check-up of former prime minister Imran Khan at Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The speeches of the opposition members were completely blacked out on the official social media accounts of the National Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Injustice to Sindh<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and PPP legislators mostly criticised the federal government over long and frequent power outages in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another PPP MNA Sharmila Faruqui highlighted the alleged contradiction in the federal government\u2019s development priorities, stating that while \u201cthe government repeatedly cites lack of fiscal space, it has approved Rs49bn in federal financing for the first phase of Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar Motorway.\u201d On the other hand, she said, the government had released only Rs30bn for the long-delayed strategic Hyderabad-Sukkur Motor\u00adway, terming it a great injustice to the Sindh province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highlighting some recent incidents, including the murder of Hina Javed in Rawalpindi, some lawmakers expressed serious concerns over the increase in violence against women in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Babar Nawaz and Shaista Khan of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) referring to the murder of five-year-old Ayat Noor in Haripur, lashed out at the PTI-led provincial government, questioning the alleged silence of Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and other party MPAs over the incident. The MNAs asked the KP government to take notice of the incident and bring the culprits to justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New provinces<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PPP lawmaker Agha Rafiullah demanded that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should come to the House to give a policy statement on the issue of new provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Referring to a statement by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, the PPP MNA from Karachi alleged that a cabinet member had charge-sheeted his own government by declaring that the system had collapsed in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, PML-N lawmaker Babar Nawaz said the people of Hazara didn\u2019t want to live under the present set-up and they wanted to have a separate province. He also claimed that historically, Hazara, Chitral and Swat had never been part of KP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Assembly will now meet on Friday at 11am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD(National Times)- It was a largely non-productive and wasteful day in the National Assembly on Tuesday as lawmakers spent nearly three hours raising petty issues, mostly related to their constituencies, under the guise of \u201cpoints of order\u201d. Deputy Speaker Ghulam Shah showed great generosity by allowing more than three dozen members to speak on issues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest_news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n