Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Despite a very limited number of treasury members present in the National Assembly on Monday, the government side successfully managed to pass three bills with the help of opposition benches.

It was quite evident that the proceedings were being run due to friendly opposition otherwise the government side was not in a position to continue. Instead of very low attendance of lawmakers, nobody pointed out the lack of quorum.

The House passed two government bills appearing on regular agenda, which included the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and the National University of Technology Bill, 2017.

However, another bill the Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power (Amendment) Bill, 2017, appearing on the supplementary agenda, faced a little resistance from opposition lawmakers, who were initially not in favour to take the said bill as supplementary item.

The parliamentary leader of Pakistan Peoples’ Party Parliamentarian (PPPP) Syed Naveed Qamar while criticising the move has said: “Is it an assembly of illiterate people, who will pass an important bill without reading it?”

“Why the government is in so much hurry to pass this bill. I will not become the part of this practice as we are not here to just raise our hands”, the lawmaker said while threatening to walk out from the proceedings.

Responding to PPPP lawmaker, the Federal Minister for Power Sardar Awais Khan Laghari has explained that a parliamentary committing having the representation of all parties have already cleared this bill that’s why the government has decided to table it before the house.

“The bill is to restrict overbilling, penalise officers involved in overbilling and to introduce competitive tariff structures”, the minister said while cautioning that if the same bill will not be taken, the consumers will have to suffer ultimately.”

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentary Leader, Shah Mehmood Qurashi responded the minister that we don’t have any issue with the legislation but we have some reservation on a way you adopted to pass it from the National Assembly.

“This is a unanimous legislation and your hassle can make it controversial”, he said.

The said bill was also passed by House after rejecting a clause of the bill, which were objected by opposition member on a plea that it would give an absolute authority to federal government regarding imposition of any surcharge on consumers. Meanwhile, the Minister for Water Resources Syed Javed Ali Shah has said that the government is considering constructing small and big dams to overcome the issue of water shortages.

Responding to a call attention notice in the assembly, he said work on Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams can be started on the availability of funds. Similarly, he said there is great potential of small dams in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Published in Daily Times, November 21^st 2017.