The sixth consecutive general discussion in the Sindh Assembly on the new provincial budget on Saturday was marred by trading of allegations between the treasury and the opposition lawmakers, as the legislature witnessed pandemonium and unruly behaviour.
The most unpleasant scene of the day featured Nusrat Sehar Abbasi, an opposition legislator belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F), who for some time during the sitting was seen showing her shoe to PA Deputy Speaker Syeda Shehla Raza, who chaired the meeting.
The vocal opposition lawmaker even left her chair at the back benches of the provincial assembly and continued to display her shoe in front of the speaker’s rostrum.
On one occasion there was a quite evident possibility of a clash between her and other female legislators in the House belonging to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) who rushed towards her in order to “teach her a lesson”.
But it was the timely intervention by Leader of the Opposition Khawaja Izharul Hassan belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and MPA Samar Ali Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), who saved the situation from turning worse.
What provoked the PML-F lawmaker to show her shoe to the chair were the unfavourable remarks by Sindh Population Welfare Minister Mir Mumtaz Hussain Khan Jakhrani against Nusrat and another opposition MPA.
The population welfare minister during his speech in the House said that two female legislators of the opposition are in the habit of creating a ruckus in the assembly, but they never publicly disclose the benefits they have received from the ruling PPP. Jakhrani referred to Nusrat and Sorath Thebo belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The population welfare minister claimed that the two opposition lawmakers had lately obtained 2,000 sacks of Bardana (gunny bags for storing wheat under the government’s procurement scheme) from an MPA of the ruling PPP despite the fact that the two legislators have no agricultural land for cultivation.
He said the two opposition lawmakers should inform the House for whose benefit they have obtained the Bardana sacks. “The two [legislators] are in the habit of hurling accusations at the PPP despite getting benefits from it.”
These remarks provoked the opposition lawmaker of the PML-F as she kept on shouting in the House while hurling accusations at the treasury benches despite the fact that her microphone was switched off.
On one occasion, the deputy speaker ordered the sergeant-at-arms to expel the unruly lawmaker from the House, but the opposition MPA remained present in the assembly. The deputy speaker also ordered to debar the unruly legislator from one sitting of the House.
The opposition leader and deputy speaker also had a heated debate as the former intervened to calm down the female lawmaker who kept on with her disruptive protest in the House.
General debate
Earlier, taking part in the general discussion in the House on the new Sindh government budget for the year 2018-19, parliamentary party leader of the opposition MQM-P Syed Sardar Ahmed suggested that the Board of Revenue be tasked with the collection of agricultural income tax in the province.
The parliamentary party leader of the MQM-P said the government should cut its wasteful and unproductive expenses in order to meet its budgetary deficit. He said the Sindh government lacks the capacity to spend every year the budgetary allocations it makes for carrying out development works in the province.
He said that in the passing financial year as well the Sindh government will once again fail to spend the total budgetary allocations it has reserved for carrying out development works.
He demanded that thorough audit should be conducted to check the status of accounts of the Sindh Food Department, as the department incurs heavy financial losses every year on procurement of wheat under the government’s scheme.
He said the province is used to spending in an erroneous manner the funds it receives from the federal government under the National Finance Commission Award.
Speaking on the occasion, Sindh Planning & Development Minister Saeed Ghani conceded that he has ordered to stop the development work on the construction of lavatory facilities at government-run schools in the upscale Clifton locality of Karachi.
He said the opposition PTI is trying to make the development work in question unduly politicised. The issue regarding toilet facilities at public schools of his constituency was raised a few days ago by PTI’s legislator Samar Ali Khan during his remarks in the House as he participated in the ongoing general discussion on the new budget. Without naming names, Ghani said an MPA of the PTI had distributed handbills among the public in order to get undue political mileage out of the issue of development works being carried out in government-run schools across Karachi.
He said the present Sindh government of the PPP has completed a record number of development works in the city, including those related to the reconstruction of University Road, Sharea Faisal, Tariq Road and the National Highway, besides the construction of a number of underpasses and flyovers.
He said the Sindh government will construct four large and modern graveyards in different districts of Karachi with the facility of coffin carriers. He added that the provincial government has spent Rs70 billion on the development of the backward district of Tharparkar.
He said the PPP during its rule in the past decade has spent between Rs28 billion to Rs30 billion on the development of Larkana, adding that the allegation of spending Rs70 billion on the development of the native town of the Bhutto family is utterly false.
He said the PPP will emerge as the biggest political party of the city after the general elections scheduled to be held later this year.
Opposition MPA of the MQM-P Faisal Ali Subzwari said the second consecutive provincial government of the PPP has been completely ignoring the cause of development of urban Sindh.
He said the PPP’s rule in Sindh, despite allocating a development budget to the tune of Rs1.5 trillion and enjoying all the powers, has failed to transform the condition of the urban parts of the province.
He said the Sindh government of the PPP has also failed to develop the rest of the province, claiming that the provincial administration has ruined the entire province.
He said the present rulers in the province are utterly incompetent, corrupt and inefficient because they harbour a bias against the residents of urban Sindh.
“The present state of Sindh is because of the presence of these corrupt, ineligible and biased rulers, as such a sorry state of affairs can only happen during the regime of the present rulers,” said the opposition MPA.
He said the Sindh government does not do agitation at all despite the fact that the population of Karachi has been counted as 15 million less than the actual figure in the latest population census campaign.
He said the people in the province will be compelled to demand a separate administrative unit for the welfare of their own areas when the successive governments have completely failed to protect their rights.
There is no harm at all if people start aspiring for a new province in accordance with the constitution, as people should not be termed as traitors and infidels merely on the basis of such an aspiration, he added.
Sindh Local Government Minister Jam Khan Shoro said the MQM-P has utterly ruined the municipal bodies in the province. He said the MQM-P got recruited in LG agencies across Karachi loyalists and office-bearers of the party who used to throng at public meetings of the MQM during the 1990s. He said that it is high time that the MQM-P make amends for its past misdeeds.