ISLAMABAD: A legislative body of the Lower House on Tuesday has decided not to conduct meetings owing to the non-serious attitude of the communication ministry and a continued absence of National Highway Authority (NHA) chairman in a few meetings. As the meeting of the National Assembly Committee on Communication commenced, the members raised the issue of absence of NHA chairman, which irked the entire members. In the meantime, the ministry of communication secretary went out and called the NHA chairman and on his return, informed the committee that the chairman would arrive in 10 to 15 minutes. The committee observed that due to regular absence of the chairman, the recommendations of the committee were not being complied in letter and in spirit. During informal discussions, the committee was informed that payment to the affected people of Kayal Bridge at Karakoram Highway had not been given compensation since 2014. Similarly, it was noticed that the previous recommendations of the committee about the payment of the affected people of Quba Saeed Khan, had also not been made so far. However, only a few people have received the payments and rest of the people are waiting. Moreover, the NHA did not pay the compensation amount to the affected people of Dir. The committee was informed that report on action taken by NHA deputy director and the officials of Police Station Naurang, against the petrol pump of the former MNA, was not received by the committee. The committee recommended that the matter may be dealt with in accordance with the law, adding that the committee was regularly being ignored by the NHA chairman and now it would not proceed any further. So, the committee ended its meeting without further deliberations. Committee member Nasima Hafiz Panezai was of the view that she came from Quetta only for attending this meeting but here the attitude of the ministry and the NHA was totally insulting. Why was the government spending huge amounts over conducting such meetings for which government officials themselves were not bother to come and attend? She questioned. The committee was unable to take up important agenda items, which included consideration of complaint on the extortion of cheque amounting to Rs 300,000 incident that occurred on January 10, against NHA Deputy Director Karack Muhammad Jamil from the manager of a petrol pump owned by Naseer Muhammad Maidadkhail. Other agenda item was discussion over enemy property cell and comprehensive report of the previous recommendations of the committee. The meeting was presided over by the Standing Committee Chairman of National Assembly on Communications Muhammad Muzammil Qureshi and attended by MNAs Maiza Hameed, Nazir Ahmed Bughio, Ramesh Lal, Salim Rehman, Hamidul Haq Khalil, Sanjay Parwani, Molana Qamaruddin, Sahibzada Tariqullah, Naseema, Usman Khan Tarakai and Shahjehan Munir Mangrio. Moreover, secretary communications and several senior civil officers attended the meeting. Published in Daily Times, March 21st 2018.