Daily Times

LAHORE: Punjab Assembly (PA) Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan during Thursday’s session stopped the opposition leader from tabling a resolution against the recent wave of inflation and heavy increase in electricity tariff.

On a point of order, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly strongly criticised the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government over increasing prices of electricity units and demanded the speaker to take his resolution out of turn as an important and an issue of public interest.

However, the speaker did not allow him to move his resolution out of turn as per the rules of business of the assembly, on which the opposition strongly protested and pointed out the quorum, so the session was adjourned as required number of legislators was not present in the House and the treasury failed to complete it once again.

Opposition leader Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed addressing the House on a point of order said that the government had dropped a bomb of price hike on the poor masses after increasing electricity tariff by up to Rs 3.80 per unit.

He also said that the people of Punjab had already been facing a new wave of inflation in the province, as the prices of ginger, tomatoes and onions were high and going out of the reach of the poor. He said that the government had no control over the recent price hike.

The Punjab Assembly session on Thursday started an hour and 20 minutes late from its scheduled time and the House adopted the question hour about the Higher Education and Local Government and Community Development departments. Minister Manshaullah Butt and Parliamentary Secretary (PS) Mehwish Sultana replied to the queries of their colleagues.

During the question hour, the Punjab government acknowledged that as many as 3,271 posts of lecturers were lying vacant in different universities and colleges of the province. The parliamentary secretary of higher education confirmed in the House that her department had provided the list of those vacant seats of lecturers to the Public Service Commission.

The treasury and opposition members jointly criticised the government for not filling the said vacant seats and accused officials in the Public Service Commission of deliberately delaying the appointments in order to accommodate their blue-eyed people on the posts.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) legislator Sardar Shahabuddin said that that the Nawaz League was appointing people on BPS-4 posts in Local Government and Community Development Department under a “special quota for leaguers”. The PA session will resume today.

Published in Daily Times, September 22^nd 2017.