Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly on Thursday expressed reservations over the loopholes in the ongoing census.

The government ally JUI-F legislators staged a walkout over census-related matters.

FATA lawmaker Jamaluddin while speaking on a point of order expressed reservations on the housing and population census of IDPs. He said their houses had been destroyed due to terrorism. He demanded that the census should be carried out on the basis of data available with FATA Disaster Management Authority.

Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Rana Afzal assured the House that he would take up the matter with the finance minister to get the reservations of FATA members removed.

Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker Sahibzada Tariqullah on a point of order raised concern over the use of pencil in filling the census forms which he said might be erased. He also spoke over the composition of officials regarding census. He said three members had been taken from Punjab while other provinces had no representation in it.

Aftab Sherpao demanded that the counting of the census of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be done in Peshawar otherwise it would generate doubts over the process which would not be good for the federation.

ANP leader Ghulam Ahmad Bilour also supported the demand of appointing members from each province in the census setup.

MQM’s Shaikh Salahuddin said census should not be made a controversial issue. In Karachi, he said, high-rise buildings were being counted as a single building. He demanded that the flats of each residential building should be separately counted. He also urged the government to take into consideration the overseas Pakistan.

Awami Muslim League lawmaker Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed demanded to make the report of Abbottabad Commission public. He said opposition and the government might have differences but they were agreed on the demand that the report should be made public. He also raised questions over the recent revelation of Hussain Haqqani and said 15,000 to 16,000 visas to the Americans were issued without any inquiry and there is no arrival or departure record of these persons.

To a call attention notice moved by Khalida Mansoor regarding non-availability of life saving drugs in the country, Parliamentary Secretary for National Health Services Dr Darshan told the House that medicine for treatment of TB were available in hospitals. However, he said no one has applied for life saving drugs like Florinif and Hydrocartizan for registration. He said if any doctor of a public sector hospital prescribed these medicines, the hospital was bound to import these medicines through prescribed procedure.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly Jirga headed by Shah Jee Gul Afridi resolved the issue between PML-N member Javed Latif and PTI member Murad Saeed. Latif apologised and withdrew his words he uttered about the family of Saeed. Saeed thanked the jirga for intervention and expressed satisfaction on the decision.