PA session adjourned till Monday due to lack of quorum

Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani has adjourned the proceedings of the house session till 2pm, Monday, owing to lack of quorum.

The speaker arrived in the house on Thursday a little after 10am, the scheduled time for commencement of the session for the day, and found a few lawmakers sitting on the opposition and treasury benches.

He expressed resentment over the situation saying that lawmakers had not been coming to the house in a punctual manner despite repeated warnings by the chair due to which the session began behind the scheduled time. Later, the speaker announced to adjourn the session till Monday without any formal proceedings.

Talking to journalists later in the day, Firdous Shamim Naqvi, Leader of the Opposition in Sindh Assembly, said that the session begins almost every day after a delay of one hour to one-and-a-half hour so there was no particular cause today to adjourn on the basis of lack of quorum.

He said that fulfilment of the quorum requirement of the house was a collective responsibility, which should be jointly undertaken both by the opposition and government. Naqvi lamented that membership of 42 lawmakers of Pakistan Peoples Party had been suspended by the Election Commission of Pakistan for not providing details of their assets and properties.

He said that the present Sindh government had been brazenly involved in corrupt practices as the ruling PPP had been in the habit of plundering the money collected through public taxes. Opposition legislator of Grand Democratic Alliance Arif Mustafa Jatoi said that abrupt adjournment of the session didn’t provide the opportunity to the opposition to table an important resolution in the assembly. He said the speaker didn’t follow the rules of procedure of Sindh Assembly while ordering the adjournment.