The issue of Syed Awais Qadir Shah, the Sindh Assembly speaker who is currently the acting governor of Sindh, not getting access to the Governor House's office to chair a meeting on Sindh's law and order overshadowed the ongoing debate in the provincial legislature on the new Sindh government’s budget on Friday.
Concerned treasury and opposition legislators weighed in on the unusual incident indicating a clear tussle over the authority between the full-time governor, Kamran Khan Tessori, who has been off to Saudi Arabia for the past several days to perform Hajj, and the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Sindh government.
Reports said the bureaucracy and official staff of the Governor's secretariat did not grant access to the acting governor when he came to the Governor House on Friday to preside over a meeting on law and order along with the Sindh inspector general of police, Sindh home secretary and other relevant officials.
The staff reportedly told the acting governor that they did not have keys to the governor's office. The acting governor had to eventually move the Sindh High Court to get a favourable judicial order to get unhindered access to the governor's secretariat.
Commenting on the controversy in the house, senior PPP parliamentarian and former Sindh Assembly speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani opined that the office of the Sindh Assembly's speaker had been disgraced by not allowing the acting Sindh governor to enter the governor's secretariat.
"You don't have any right to dishonour our speaker," said Durrani, who earlier twice served as the Sindh Assembly speaker, while apparently referring to Governor Tessori without naming him. He suggested that a resolution should be moved in the House to condemn the incident. Another senior PPP lawmaker and former provincial assembly speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that stopping the acting governor from using the governor's secretariat went against the Constitution that laid down the official procedures to execute such affairs. He emphasised that the Governor House in Karachi was not the personal property of anyone.
Khuhro said that the Governor House should not be under the unauthorised occupation of anyone. Sindh Law and Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar disclosed that the Sindh Assembly speaker had become the acting governor 22 days back, but he hadn't been granted access to the governor's secretariat to perform his constitutional functions. He informed the legislators that as per the Constitution, the Acting provincial governor possessed the same privileges and authority as enjoyed by the full-time governor.
He said the office of the Sindh governor and its related secretariat were not reserved for any specific person, as they should be accessed by anyone who became the governor in accordance with the Constitution.
Lanjar said it was sorrowful that the speaker did not get access to the office of the governor on becoming the acting governor and was left with no option but to move the constitutional court in Sindh that ordered unlocking all the offices at the Governor House.
The Sindh law minister also read out in the House the court order issued in this regard. He urged the Sindh chief minister to take action against the erring staff behind the sorrowful incident in light of the court's order.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Taha Ahmed said the incident involving the acting Sindh governor had occurred merely because of a misunderstanding and a lack of coordination among officials concerned, as it was not advisable to give undue salience to this incident. He assured the House that they also fully honoured the acting Sindh governor. He said the incident had occurred due to a misunderstanding, and it should not be exploited to defame Governor Tessori.
Earlier, taking part in the general discussion on the new Sindh budget, Jamaat-e-Islami MPA Muhammad Farooq feared that Karachi could become the battleground for the world's first-ever war over the water crisis.
He urged the ruling PPP in Sindh to emphatically demand that the federal government provide sufficient budgetary support to complete the K-IV bulk water supply project for Karachi.