Rumpus mars House proceedings
PESHAWAR: Rumpus marred the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly proceedingson Mondayas the session was adjourned for lack of quorum without completing the agenda.
The strike by the Provincial Management Service (PMS) and Provincial Civil Service (PCS) officers echoed in the House as members from the treasury and opposition debated the issue.
Opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rahman of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl said the situation had gone worse as the PMS and PCS officers considered to be the key figures in government machinery are on a pen-down strike and are staging a protest sit-in.
“It is for the first time that government officers, who are supposed to tackle strike and protests, have themselves been compelled to go on a strike,” he added.Maulana Lutfur Rahman said the officers were demanding removal of chief secretary who was head of the bureaucracy and had to run the government through administrative secretaries and other officers. He said the government should take the issue seriously and get it resolved.
However, senior ministers Sikandar Sherpao and Inayatullah said the chief minister had constituted a committee for talks with the protesting officers and the matter would be solved amicably. Sikandar Sherpao said PMS and PCS officers were an asset to the province and the government representatives had held talks with them to resolve the issue.
Deputy Speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani presided over the session wherein the newly elected Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Arbab Wasim Hayat of the PML-N took oath of his office.
Maulana Lutfur Rahman, senior ministers Inayatullah Khan and Sikandar Khan Sherpao, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information and Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani, Syed Jafar Shah, Zarin Zia and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary leader Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha welcomed Arbab Wasim to the House after winning the by-election on a rural Peshawar that fell vacant due to the death of his uncle, Arbab Akbar Hayat.
They paid tributes to the late MPA Arbab Akbar Hayat for playing an active role in the assembly.
The legislators hoped the newly elected member would follow in the footsteps of his uncle and serve not only his electorate but the people of the province as well by taking active part in the assembly proceedings and pinpointing the problems and issue of public interest.
Aurangzeb Nalotha, on an adjournment motion, drew the attention of the House towards the non-allotment of official residence to an employee of the assembly secretariat.
He said the Supreme Court had declared the National Assembly, Senate and provincial assemblies’ employees as civil servants but the Administration Department was reluctant to allot official residence to the assembly secretariat employee.
Shah Hussain of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) lawmaker Jafar Shah also supported the point and called for referring the matter to the committee concerned.
Senior Minister Inayatullah assured the House that the secretary administration would be called to the assembly to discuss the matter. However, on the insistence of the opposition the matter was referred to the assembly committee.
Amna Sardar of the PML-N on a point of order raised the issue of ad hoc lecturers from Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) who are on strike. She said they had not been receiving salaries for the last nine months.
JUI-F’s Uzma Khan backed Amna Sardar and said salaries of at least one or two months should be paid to them till the resolution of the issue.
Special Assistant to Chief Minister Mushtaq Ghani, however, said it was a complicated issue as the Establishment Department and Fata Secretariat were not cooperating.He said according to the Establishment Department, the lecturers were appointed on an ad hoc basis and not on contract and that is why their service could not be extended.He said the government was trying to seek a legal way for regularisation of their services.
Malik Shah Muhammad, on a point of order, raised the issue of confiscating the vehicles of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Waziristan. He said the Customs authorities and police had seized vehicles of the IDPs which they had brought for personal use. He argued that the federal government should order return of the vehicles and issue temporary permits to the IDPs for the vehicles.
Fakhar Azam Wazir of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) wanted to speak on the IDPs vehicles’ issue when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sobia Khan pointed to the lack
of quorum and the speaker adjourned the session till May 26.