NA to remember Mufti Shakoor today

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly in its session on Monday (today) will remember its late member, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Mufti Abdul Shakoor, who died in a road accident about 300 yards away from the Parliament House on the Constitution Avenue Saturday evening.

The members will pay tribute to the departed soul and the House, without transacting any other business, would be adjourned.

Well-placed parliamentary sources told The News in case there was an urgency to conduct any other business, the House would be deferred for a specific brief period to reassemble again.

Mufti Abdul Shakoor was laid to rest on Sunday afternoon in his native town Tajabi Khail near Lakki Marwat.

The late Mufti last met his colleagues in the lobby of the National Assembly on an Iftar-dinner after adjournment of the House on Friday evening where he was accompanied by federal ministers Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Maulana Assad Mahmood, Rana Tanveer Hussain, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Tariq Bashir Cheema and others. They also had discussion about political issues.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf will lead the House in paying homage to the departed leader. Meanwhile, the NA Secretariat has issued a 10-point agenda for the day’s proceedings. The agenda includes laying of annual report of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on the state of the country’s economy for the year 2021-22. It has to be presented by Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, who will also lay before the house mid-year budget review report for the year 2022-23. It would be submitted under the Public Finance Management Act, 2019. Since Senator Ishaq Dar has gone to Saudi Arabia, it is understood that State Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha would lay both the reports. Federal Minister for Law and Justice Senator Azam Nazir Tarar will lay the annual report of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for the year 2022. Aliya Kamran and Maulana Salahuddin Ayubi, Kamal Ud Din, and Muhammad Jamal Ud Din of JUI through calling attention notice will invite the attention of the railways minister about delay in payment of pensionary benefits and salary to the employees of his department.

The sources pointed out the Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf would defer all the agenda items for the next day since the House has to pay tribute to the late Mufti Abdul Shakoor and no other business would be taken up for discussion in the routine hours of the House.