Treasury benches blasted for non-serious assembly business

Opposition members complain queries going unanswered

PESHAWAR: The treasury benches in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly faced embarrassment on Tuesday as the opposition members criticised the government for not taking the business of the House seriously.

The House witnessed a heated debate when Mufti Janan of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) complained that the Energy and Power Department didn’t provide him the details about the spending of gas royalty.  He had sought the details about the spending in the gas and oil-rich Karak, Kohat and Hangu districts.

Mufti Janan said the agenda was sent to different departments on August 17, but none bothered to reply.

Fakhre Azam Wazir of the Pakistan People’s Party supported Mufti Janan’s stance and said action should be taken against the departments for not responding to their queries.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser asked Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Higher Education and Information Mushtaq Ghani as to why his department avoided answering the questions.

Mushtaq Ghani said he had taken notice of the issue raised by the opposition lawmakers and action would be taken against the officials concerned. He said the speaker should also take action against them.

Senior Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah also supported the members of the opposition and said the privilege of the House was above all the departments and institutions. He said it was the responsibility of government employees to respect public representatives and answer their queries.

The minister said he would ask the chief minister to direct all the departments to reply to the questions of the lawmakers.He said the speaker should call the secretaries to the provincial assembly.

Taking the floor, opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman said it was interesting that members of the treasury benches seemed helpless. He requested the speaker to take action against the erring departments.He said that ministers were not present at the House to answer the questions.

The Maulana said bills were passed in haste and the members were not briefed about vital legislation. Giving his ruling, the speaker asked the chief secretary to direct administrative secretaries to prepare answers to the questions within 10 days or else action would be taken against him.

Deputy Speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani said departments should send the answers a day before the session.Meraj Humayun Khan of Qaumi Watan Party raised the issue of service regularisation of teaching assistants.

Malik Qasim of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf backed the issue and said they were in fact ad hoc lecturers and their services were not being regularised.In his reply, Mushtaq Ghani said the government recruited the teaching assistants two years ago on merit, but the bureaucracy was creating hurdles in their regularization.

He said ironically the teaching assistants were not given proper grade at the time of recruitment as they served in different grades from 17 to 19.Mushtaq Ghani said the Law Department had told him that their services cannot be regularised.

However, the speaker said the advocate general in his note has recommended the employees can be regularised through legislation.The House was debating the amendments introduced by the members to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Commission on the Status of Women Bill, 2016 when Malik Riaz of JUI-F pointed out the lack of quorum.The speaker adjourned the session till Friday as only 21 members were present at the House.