Daily Times

The opposition in Punjab Assembly recorded severe protest in the House for running the affairs of the government through ordinances instead of proper legislation.

As per the details, senior MPA of PML-N Samiullah Khan on Monday raised the issue of running the government through ordinances while demanding that the Punjab government should withdraw all the ordinances as the practice was done in the National Assembly also and should bring the legislation in the House for proper debate and deliberations.

Speaking on the point of order, MPA Samiullah Khan said that this government has tried to run the affairs through ordinances and it is unprecedented in the parliamentary history of Punjab. “The government has set a bad example of ordinances as the House has the extension of 5 ordinances on the agenda item today while three new ordinances are also in the government business today,” said Samiullah Khan, while criticizing the government’s approach of running the House. The government sought an extension of 90 days in five ordinances including The Rawalpindi Women University, Rawalpindi Ordinance 2019 (IX of 2019), The University of Mianwali Ordinance 2019 (X of 2019), The Punjab Public Private Partnership Ordinance 2019 (XI of 2019), The Punjab Medical Teaching Institutions (Reforms) Ordinance 2019 (XII of 2019) and The Punjab Probation and Parole Service Ordinance 2019 (XIII of 2019). The government also had three new ordinances including The Punjab Agricultural Marketing Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Ordinance 2019, The Punjab Local Government (Amendment) Ordinance 2019 and The Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighbourhood Councils (Amendment) Ordinance 2019 on Monday in the agenda item. As the Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari gave a go ahead to the ordinances, the opposition started chanting slogans against the government. “Close down the factory of Ordinances” were the slogans raised by the opposition while staging walkout from the House. MPA Samiullah Khan said that one can gauge the performance of the ministers where the most experienced and competent minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat is running the affairs through ordinances. He was of the view that it is for the first time in the parliamentary history of Punjab where the number of pending bills is more than the number of passed bill as there are 20 pending bills while only 18 bills were passed in Punjab Assembly. The government did legislation in the absence of the opposition that staged a walkout amid the sloganeering in the House.

Speaking on the occasion, law minister Raja Basharat said that the government is bringing the ordinances under the law and we are not doing any unconstitutional legislation in this House. Earlier, leader of the opposition Hamza Shehbaz came in the House on production orders issued by Speaker Ch Pervaiz Elahi. The PML-N lawmakers accorded warm welcome to Hamza in the House by desk thumping and raising slogans as he came after a gap of five months because the government was earlier reluctant to issue his production orders. It seems that the pressure tactics of PML-N worked as the Speaker issued his production orders immediately after 100 MPAs resigned from the standing committees the other day. The Deputy Speaker adjourned the House to meet again on Tuesday afternoon at 3pm.