Opp, Treasury accuse each other of deceit

LAHORE
The members of the Opposition and treasury traded accusations of insincerity towards the public welfare against each other, but showed least interest in analysing the budgetary allocations as the Punjab Assembly began general discussion on the provincial budget 2015-16 on Monday.
The proceedings were lackluster since members from both sides did not even care to remain in the House to listen to the debate. Even the opposition members were not present to counter the praises showered on the government by the treasury members and all of them left the House soon after the leader of Opposition Mehmoodur Rasheed concluded his marathon opening speech. The treasury members were not more than 45 in the beginning and their number kept thinning and only a dozen left as the proceedings drew to a close.
PML-N’s Ali Ashgar Manda drew deputy speaker’s attention towards the Opposition’s disinterest in the proceedings on a point of order saying the complete absence of those claiming to be champions of people’s rights showed how sincere they were with the cause of poor people. He said the empty Opposition benches were mocking the House even on the first day of the general discussion. But PML-Z’s Chaudhri Ghulam Murtaza, who were on his feet at the time, indicated that treasury benches presented no different picture as no minister other than the finance minister was in the House. However, the deputy speaker prevented him from commenting any further and said the finance minister and her entire department were present in the House.
The treasury members termed the budget balanced and kept praising the government for showing remarkable performance towards improving the lot of the poor. They accused the opposition for hindering the public welfare projects by staging lengthy sit-in at Islamabad which, they said, delayed the China-Pak Economic Corridor for over one year. They also criticised the leader of the opposition for not acknowledging government’s performance in the departments of education, health, transport and agriculture.
While the opposition members accused the government of showing discriminatory attitude towards the southern Punjab in making budgetary allocations and warned that if separate public service commission was not established for south then they would be forced to raise the demand for a separate province in south Punjab. PPP’s Qazi Ahmad Saeed termed the budget merely a document of bureaucrats read out by the finance minister in which all the major sectors were ignored. He termed the budget killer of the aspirations of the poor. He accused the government of not allowing the equal development funds to opposition members adding that in contrast the opposition parties in their provincial governments in KPK and Sindh were allowing equal funds to their opposition members.
Treasury’s Chaudhry Iqbal said leader of the opposition criticised the government for ignoring cheap power production through hydel power generation, but failed to take any step towards constructing the Kala Bagh Dam in their own province KPK. Waris Kallu said PTI’s dharna delayed the economic growth of the country for over one year, especially the China-Pak Economic Corridor.
Mian Tariq Mehmood, Rana Arshad, Mazhar Abbas Raan, Abdul Rauf Mughal, Ijaz Shafi and Zulfiqar Ghauri also participated in the debate.