MPAs attend PA session before getting test results for COVID-19

As the Sindh Assembly continued with its general discussion on the coronavirus situation in the province, it emerged on Friday that the directives of the speaker that all lawmakers should be tested in advance for coronavirus before their participation in the new session of the house were not fully complied with by the Sindh Health Department.The directives of Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani to the health department were meant to ensure that any of the lawmakers found infected with coronavirus did not get the chance to enter the building of the provincial assembly. But it emerged yesterday that the directives were not fully implemented by the health authorities when the current session of the house entered its third day.

Firstly, it was an opposition MPA of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Jamal Siddiqui, who during the session disclosed in the house that he was participating in the session without getting the report of his COVID-19 test. He said he had been tested for coronavirus on June 1 but he was yet to receive the test report despite the passage of four days.

He said a delay in the result of his corona test showed “the performance of the Sindh Health Department”. Even a grimmer situation emerged later during the session when the House reassembled in the afternoon after the recess for Friday prayers. It was announced in the house that another opposition lawmaker of the Muttahida Quami Movement, Shahana Ashar, had left the assembly as she got her test result declaring her positive for COVID-19. It emerged that the lawmaker had been attending the session for the past two days.

The lawmaker reportedly said that she was dissatisfied with the result of the test conducted by the government as she would once get herself tested for detection of the virus. Sindh Minister for Mines and Mineral Shabbir Bijarani said on the occasion that the lawmakers who had not received their test reports should not come to the house.