Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Assembly was required to hold pre-budget discussion between January-March to submit proposals for budget 2016-17 to federal government under Rules 143 and 144, but it was delayed by lawmakers, said FAFEN report.

According to Sindh Assembly Annual Report 2015-16, the lawmakers showed no concern during six days post-budget debate.

As many as 20 lawmakers participated in the debate that lasted four hours and six minutes. They discussed budget expenditure, utilisation and pre-budget proposals for the annual budget
of 2016-17.

The sessions observed less interest of MPAs as more than half of the legislators did not contributed to the debate, while 79 out of 24 female and 55 male members only took part in the budget debate.

As many as 28 government bills and 36 resolutions were passed. There were five sessions held starting on June 13, 2015 and ending on May 3, 2016, which lasted 182 hours and 7 minutes fulfilling constitutional requirement under Article 54 for a hundred days in a year.

According to FAFEN report, the Sindh chief minister and the leader of the opposition in Sindh Assembly marked low attendance, as former was present in 30 sittings.

The Sindh Assembly speaker chaired 69 percent of the proceedings whereas the deputy speaker chaired 26 percent of the proceedings. However, the attendance record of parliamentary leaders was more encouraging as the PPP leaders attended 54 sittings, followed by the members of MQM with 52 proceedings, PTI with 49, PML-F with 48 and PML-N with 44 proceedings.

The report said the Sindh Assembly passed 28 government and two other bills while one bill was rejected. The approved legislation focused on the areas of education, finance, judiciary, local government, labour welfare and governance but unfortunately Sindh government can not prepare rules of business for implementation of the 28 government and two other bills.

On a separate note, the Sindh Assembly Speaker, Agha Siraj Khan Durrani, said that no sitting member of provincial assembly (MPA) found involved in any criminal activities, as there is no record available on any MPAs’ alleged involvement.

As far as the Pakistan Rangers Sindh, director general is concerned, he did a good job of approaching the Sindh Assembly speaker about an MPA Karman Rafooqui who is from Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The Sindh Rangers DG’s letter is a proof that he abides by the law of the country.

However, the SA speaker said that none of the law enforcement agency is legally authorised to arrest any of the MPAs and in case there is a need for the same, the LEAs have to approach the SA speaker first. The issue of Farooqui is dated a month ago and he is ignorant if any progress made on this particular matter till date.

He said that the Rangers DG’s letter was forwarded to the residential address of Farooqui and the recipient had responded to that letter seeking time to visit Rangers after his ailing mother would get stable as she is sick.

He said there is no harm to appear before Rangers because Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) MPAs had also been appearing before Rangers for interrogations.

The speaker endorsed the statement of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on the federal budget-2016-17 and said that the people of Sindh demand for their rights and that they would never stop demanding their due rights.

He said that the PPP chairman is continuing the pattern of politics of his grandfather by raising voice of concern on public issues and the party is on protest over the gruesome situation of water and power crisis in Sindh.

The speaker said that he would soon present the report on progress of the PPP MPAs to the party chairman, PPP President Asif Ali Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and MNA Faryal Talpur and would recommend them to press the MPAs for improving their role as MPA of Sindh province.

On the question of Sting operation by a show presenter IqrarUl Hassan, the speaker said that he has to tender unconditional apology to the Sindh Assembly for insulting the house of the representatives. He said the matter is under investigation and those found responsible would face the music.