Daily Times

LAHORE: The Transport Department Thursday could not answer all questions asked by legislators about the Orange Line Metro Train (OMT), the Metro Bus Service (MBS) and the Mass Transit Train (MTT) projects.

Opposition benches condemned the irresponsible attitude of the department and called into question transparency in the projects, while Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah asked the speaker to take serious notice of the issue and fixed responsibility on officials concern for further action.

The Punjab Assembly session on Thursday started one hour and 15 minutes late to its scheduled time at 10am with Speaker Rana Iqbal in the chair.

The House adopted an-hour-long Question Hour session about the excise, taxation & narcotics control and transport departments. Provincial minister Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Parliamentary Secretary Nawaz Chohan answered the queries of their departments, respectively

There were total 16 questions asked by the legislators in which 10 were directly related to the OMT and MTT projects but no one answer was given by the Transport Department.

On a point of order, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed Opposition Leader Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed said that failure of the department to answer the questions had raised doubt in their minds. He said it seemed that the provincial government was “cooking something under the table”. It might be mentioned that most of the questions were asked about three to six month ago while a question about the MTT project was asked four years ago in 2013.

Anyhow, to save the skin of the government as well as the parliamentary secretary for transport in the House, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan asked the speaker to hold a meeting at his chamber for fixing the responsibility of unanswered queries on transport officials concerned. He suggested the speaker to refer the matter to the Privilege Committee or to constitute a Special Committee for further action on it.

It is worth mentioning that legislators have asked some queries from the government that it should tell the House about the reasons to end the MTT project when the feasibility report of it has been prepared. About the MBS, it was asked that the government should informed the House about the amount of subsidy in the project while the details of expenditures, deadline of completion and loans on the OMT project were also included in these questions.

Later, the House endorsed the revival of Deputy Commissioner’s system in Punjab by passing the Punjab Civil Administration Bill 2017. Opposition strongly opposed the system, saying that it would weak democracy and strengthen bureaucracy, especially deputy commissioners on elected district governments.