PESHAWAR: The issue of standing committees was raised in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday as Khushdil Khan of the Awami National Party (ANP) objected to their dissolution.
Speaking on a point of order, he said the standing committees constituted with the consensus of the entire House were dissolved on the motion of a single member, which was unconstitutional. He added that except for the Standing Committee on Finance, the affairs of the House were being run without committees for the last six months.
“The whole matter was delayed instead of adjusting members from the merged district,” he added. He said it was responsibility of the speaker to restore all the committees as the order of dissolution was passed on the motion of a single member, which was unlawful and unconstitutional.
Speaker Mushtaq Ghani assured the House that the standing committees would be constituted next week with the consensus of treasury and opposition members. Nighat Orakzai of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Shagufta Malik of the ANP said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad has been closed and members visiting the capital in connection with political activities were facing hardships.
In his reply, Law Minister Sultan Muhammad said KP House was closed due to lockdown and now the administration should open it. Ahmad Kundi of PPP moved an adjournment movement seeking discussion on non-utilization of KP water share under Water Accord 1991 (IRSA) and said the matter was of urgent public importance.
The KP local Government Act 2020, and KP Epidemic Control and Emergency Relief Ordinance 2020 were presented in the House while the KP Medical Teaching Institutes Reforms (amendment) Bill 2020 was passed amid objection from the opposition that bill was neither part of the agenda nor copies were provided to the members.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly also passed a resolution moved by lawmaker Mir Kalam Khan. The resolution demanded the restoration of internet service in the merged districts to enable the students to avail the facility of the online classes.
The resolution said the residents of the merged districts were deprived of the internet service. In his resolution, the mover said that mobile and internet service was not available in the merged districts and local students could not take online classes.
It said that educational institutions across the country had started online classes in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. The students of merged districts could not benefit from the online classes due to the lack of internet facilities, the resolution added. The resolution sought the restoration of mobile network and internet facility in the merged districts. The speaker adjourned the sitting till Friday 3pm.
