Daily Times

The treasury and opposition were seen defending the policies of their own parties during the general debate on budget in Punjab Assembly on Monday. The treasury members were praising the budget presented by the Punjab government while the opposition MPAs criticized the provincial budget during the third day of general debate. The session of Punjab Assembly started after a delay of one hour and eight minutes with Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari in the chair.

Senior PMLN’s lawmaker Ch Iqbal Gujjar came down hard over government’s cut on road’s infrastructure budget. He held responsible the present regime of creating wheat, sugar mafia adding the government has completely failed in steering the country out from current crisis. He raised questions over performance of the government claiming where the government is despite it has passed two years. “Don’t lash out at the opposition. Just show the performance what and where you have served”, said Iqbal Gujjar, an MPA from Gujranwala.

PML-N MPA Samiullah Khan said that the budget was presented by a minister whose family’s assets were just 60 million before coming into the government and now there assets have exceeded from 100 billion and it has been mentioned in the inquiry report of NAB. He also said that the Punjab is not getting its due share from the federal government. He also demanded to increase the salary of government employees by 10 percent and the development schemes should also be initiated in the constituencies of MPAs.

Former Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan said that the Sri Lankan government was surprised when Shehbaz Sharif-led Punjab government curbed the outbreak of dengue within two months while Sri Lanka couldn’t control it even in two years. He was of the view that the PTI couldn’t draft a strategy to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.

PPP’s Syed Ali Haider Gillani grilled the government claiming a promise was made to establish south Punjab province within 100 days in 2018 but now six hundred days (600) have passed but only the construction was started on secretariat for South Punjab. We reject the secretariat and demand the government for separate Chief Minister and the Speaker. We want share in NFC Award, he said.

PTI’s Neelum Hayat termed the budget as a draft of fresh air in present circumstances. It is a budget of common man who had been kept at bay from the sword of taxes. What to talk about the development projects of PMLN, it had even not prepared transgender cards. It is PTI that awarded identification to transgender and gave them their basic rights. As PMLN’s Khalil Tahir Sindhu pointed out that neither finance minister nor secretary finance were preset during the budget debate, to which Deputy Speaker Mazari adjourned proceedings for ten minutes. It is second consecutive time that Mazari is adjourning the proceedings due to the absence of finance minister and secretary finance. As the proceedings commenced after a short while, the treasury and opposition lawmakers continued their blame game putting onus of failure on each other’s shoulders. PTI’s Momina Waheed refused to speak as she said that she wasn’t prepared to talk on budget today and will prefer to speak on any other day.

MPAs Bilal Afzal Tarar, Munib ul Haq, Rana Mashhood, Shazia Abid, Sadia Suhail Rana, Sabreena Javaid and Sania Kamran also took part in the budget debate.

Later, the House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday at 2pm.