Law minister believes governor’s focus is on contesting an election

Sindh’s law minister said on Monday that it seemed that the incumbent governor was planning on contesting an election from a constituency in the province.

Ziaul Hassan was addressing the media after chairing a meeting that considered drafts of different proposed bills on women’s and children’s issues to be moved in the Sindh Assembly. Referring to Governor Mohammad Zubair returning to the provincial legislature the recently passed bill repealing the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, Hassan said never had any of the governors raised such objections to any bill.

He said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claimed that it even had the authority to summon the governor, adding that NAB issued notices to the accused on flimsy grounds, on the basis of an application filed by any anonymous person against any alleged corruption.

The law minister said a new law better than NAO was being introduced in the province for the sake of accountability.Responding to a question, Hassan said transfers and postings of Sindh police officers were routine matters, clarifying that such decisions were not taken on the basis of a specific reason.

He said that at present, drafts of proposed bills relating to the social welfare and women development departments were being considered to curb unsocial practices of dowry, honour killing and harassment of women at workplace, adding that efforts were afoot to finalise the drafts at the earliest.

The minister said the provincial government would establish special help desks to address the problems of women and children across the province. He also said commissioners and deputy commissioners posted across the province had been directed to take strict action against owners of shops and medical stores selling acid without a licence in order to prevent acid attacks on women.

Meanwhile, a summary is being moved by the law department to the Governor House for convening a Sindh Assembly session early next week to consider the governor’s objections to and observations on the bill repealing NAO. Once the provincial assembly considers all the objections and observations made by the governor, the bill would be forwarded to the governor once more for his assent.