Public petition box to be functional on Senate website soon

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani aims to restoration of majesty and transparency of Parliament with making the government accountable before Parliament and narrowing down the gap between the parliamentarians and public with making Senate more pro-people and a forum where public could register their complaints and raise public issues for their resolution.
Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has instructed the Senate Secretariat to create a box on the Senate website where the people could file the petition of the public issues so that these could be taken up in the Senate and also to refer to the Senate standing committee concerned to take up in their meetings for the issue resolution.
On the instruction of Senate chairman, Senate Secretariat is creating a public petition box on the website that could be functional within next a few days as all the technical work has completed. Once the public petition box on the website is functional, the Senate Secretariat will start the process of scrutinising the petition and will send it to the standing committees concerned of the Senate for the resolution.
“I have held the meetings on this issue with Senate Secretariat to function the petition box on the Senate website so that the people could raise their issue and these could be resolved,” said Mian Raza Rabbani while talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday.
Mian Raza Rabbani while talking to ‘The News’ said though he tentatively gave the deadline of Wednesday for making of the public petition box functional on Senate website, it is likely that it may be functional by Thursday or Friday.
Mian Raza Rabbani after being elected as a Senate chairman is also aimed to restore the majesty and transparency of Par liament, take a new initiative in which the federal ministers would be made accountable to Parliament and under first phase the commitment that would be made by any federal minister on the floor of the Upper House during the question hour would be taken up as an order of day after every two months. “After every two months, the ministers will tell the Senate about the steps taken on the suggestions of Parliament and if not then would give the reasons of not implementing and that would make the government accountable,” Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani told ‘The News’.
The Senate also amended its rules according to which instead of one calling attention, two calling attentions would be taken up daily during the Senate session.
Mian Raza Rabbani also taking up the points of orders raised by senators seriously and refer these points of order to minister concerned to respond on it. “These steps are first phase of restoration of majesty and transparency of Parliament and in second some more steps would be taken to ensure Parliament’s supremacy and to make the government accountable before Parliament,” the Senate chairman said.
The idea for creating box for public petition was conceived by Mian Raza Rabbani with an aim to reduce the gap between parliamentarians and people and when the people would file their petitions regarding their issues whether it belongs to human rights and other public concerns, the senators would also take up these issues in the Senate and Senate standing committees directly as suo moto notices so that it could be resolved.