Daily Times

KARACHI: During a discussion on the provincial budget on Thursday, several opposition lawmakers protested against the government for what they held was the latter’s failure to deliver on its commitments.

Nusrat Seher Abbasi, a PML-F lawmaker, fired a broadside at Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, saying that he had promised to provide 50,000 jobs when he took office a year ago but not more than 15,000 people were employed in the period. She alleged that Rs34 billion had been embezzled in the name of girls’ education in the province.

“Thousands of rupees were spent on flying kites in the name of culture,” she said.

Dr. Seema Zia, a legislator from PTI, highlighted what she felt was a contradiction between the states of the Sindh Assembly building, on the one hand, and that of the majority of the people of the province, on the other.

“This Assembly is luxurious, but people outside are suffering. I saw millions of rupees worth of corruption here and that is the reason why there are NAB cases against many lawmakers.”

Further, Dr Zia said that police was among the most corrupt departments, adding that over 1,200 policemen were facing cases and the government was deliberately politicising the police force. She lamented that the PPP had been in power for a decade and it could not ‘give even a single mass transit system to the province’.

She went on to say that her time in the assembly had taught her why the poor were becoming poorer and the rich were getting richer. “The poverty ratio in Sindh is much larger than in Punjab. The government lies to the outside world about the true scale of the crisis in Tharparkar.” She added that the Chief Justice had exposed some of those lies and maintained that like former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif all others must be held accountable as well. “He looted Pakistan and now he has been made to repent. In Sindh, we have six million children out of school. Feudals are responsible for keeping the public in the dark,” she said.

Several treasury members protested against Dr Zia, claiming that she had used non-parliamentary language.

In an angry tone, Law Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar said, “You got the speech’s script from someone else.”

Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza maintained that the opposition lawmaker’s statement was needlessly harsh.

Responding to this criticism, Dr Zia said she was sorry if she had hurt anyone but she wanted to speak the truth.

Sorath Thebo, a PML-N lawmaker, said that the government had lied to the people about budget allocations, adding that it wasn’t even concerned about the sanctity of the holy month of Ramazan.

“The federal government issued billions of rupees to the province for development works in Larkana and Nawabshah, but Sindh couldn’t spend the funds,” she said, adding that the Chief Justice had earlier pointed out that the public was being provided with contaminated water.

“Four million hepatitis patients in Sindh have not been provided with medicines and the money allocated for education has not been spent fairly,” she said.

Earlier Irum Azeem Farooque of MQM-Pakistan said that the Finance Department’s portfolio was with the Chief Minister who, along with his secretary and officers, was absent from the House. “No one is here to take notes,” she said.

She also criticised the PPP government for ‘bringing just 10 busses to the province in 10 years’. She asked the PPP government to introduce ‘clean people’ in the legislature instead of making tall claims of cleaning the province.a She observed that she had wanted to serve the people when she agreed to become a member of the assembly, but she realised very soon that nothing could be done as “mafias” were in power and controlling the assemblies. Farooqui announced that it was her last speech and she would not come to the assembly anymore.

Published in Daily Times, May 18^th 2018.