KARACHI: The opposition political parties in the Sindh Assembly have announced that their lawmakers will boycott the ongoing session of the house for the next two days as they are not being allowed to speak in the assembly on genuine issues of the masses of the province.
The announcement to this effect came from the Leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi while speaking at a press conference at the Sindh Assembly building on Tuesday. Naqvi was flanked by the parliamentary party leaders of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan, and Grand Democratic Alliance in Sindh Assembly.
The opposition political parties in the house said that their lawmakers would not become part of any of the committees of the Sindh Assembly soon to be formed as part of their ongoing protest drive inside and outside the assembly.
The parliamentary party leaders of opposition political parties said that the ongoing session of the Sindh Assembly was being unduly prolonged owing to the continued remand of the Speaker of the house Agha Siraj Khan Durrani at the hands of the National Accountability Bureau.
They said the provincial government had no regard for the sanctity and honour of Sindh Assembly. They said that opposition legislators in the house were not being allowed to speak in the house as their microphones remained switched off during the session.
They reiterated the demand of the opposition in the house that the chairmanship of Public Accounts Committee in the Sindh Assembly should be given to the opposition leader. The Pakistan People's Party had been sticking to its stance in the Centre that the chairmanship of PAC of the National Assembly should be given to the opposition leader, they said.
Opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi said that condition of every city, town and street in the province fully corroborated the notion that public money in Sindh was not being spent on the well-being of masses.
He said that opposition political parties in the house would continue with their agitation inside and outside the house till the time their demands were met. MPA of opposition MQM Pakistan Khawaja Izharul Hassan said that the Sindh Assembly had been miserably failing to resolve genuine issues of the masses. He said that hundreds of thousands of rupees out of the public money were being squandered on a daily basis to hold the assembly session without any result.
He said that ministers of the provincial governments had not been providing satisfactory replies to the issues raised by the opposition legislators in the house through their call attention notices and questions.
He said that the opposition had been demanding chairmanship of the PAC and certain important standing committees of the house so as to play its due part to bring about a marked improvement in the working of the Sindh government.
MQM’s MPA Kanwar Naveed Jameel said that the opposition in the house in the last 80 days had repeated their stance on several occasions that the session of the provincial legislature should be run to fulfill the public interests but to no avail. He said that in the end, the opposition had been left with no option other than to do agitation in the house.
Responding to the allegations of the opposition, Sindh Information and Law Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab said that the opposition PTI had been showing double standards as usual in the case of Sindh Assembly.
He asked the question whether or not the PAC of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly (where PTI has been ruling) had been given to the opposition. He said that the Sindh Assembly had been continuing with its proceedings as usual to do legislation continuously in the best public interest.
He said the Sindh Assembly during its proceedings of the last six months had passed a record number of laws. He said that ministers of the Sindh government had been regularly attending the proceedings of Sindh Assembly to respond to the issues raised by the opposition legislators.
He said that opposition political parties, instead of doing agitation, should take advantage of the ongoing session of the Sindh Assembly by duly attending it to raise issues of the masses. He nullified the impression that the ongoing session of the Sindh Assembly had anything to with the NAB’s actions against the speaker of the house.
He said that the business advisory committee of the Sindh Assembly had been constituted well in accordance with rules of procedure of Sindh Assembly and as such the assertions of the opposition in this regard were totally baseless.