Women lawmakers stage walkout from KP Assembly

PESHAWAR: Female members from the opposition staged a walkout from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday over incomplete answers by different departments.

During question-hour, Sobia Shahid of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) staged a walkout from the House over sharing of the incomplete answer to her question about the wheat purchase when the speaker did not allow her to speak on the issue. Other women lawmakers from the opposition also joined the walkout. However, they returned to the House after the treasury members’ assurance. The opposition faced defeat in its demand for referring the questions about change of secretary energy department and purchase of wheat. In his reply to Sobia Shahid’s question about a wheat purchase, Food Minister Qalandar Lodhi said that wheat purchase was made transparently and all receipts were available with the department, which saved Rs10 billion.

The question by Inayatullah Khan of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) about the constant transfer of secretaries in the energy department as well as Naeema Kishwar’s question about energy projects could not be referred to the committee as the treasury refused to send them to the committees.

The speaker also referred to the committee concerned the privilege motions of MPA Abdul Salam about the sub-divisional officer (SDO) and district health officer (DHO) Mardan, and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Sahibzada Sanaullah’s privilege motion about district education officer (DEO), Upper Dir.

Minister for Information Shaukat Yousafzai, while supporting referring the motions to the committee, said there were complaints that government officers were not giving importance to the elected public representatives. Minorities’ member Ranjeet Singh raised the issue of the murder of a Sikh youth in Peshawar the other day and demanded the killers should be arrested at the earliest.

He also condemned the recent incident at Nankana. However, Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai assured that the police were investigating the murder of the Sikh youth and the situation would get clear soon.