Daily Times

Lack of interest and absenteeism marred proceedings of the National Assembly (NA) as the house once again adjourned due to lack of quorum.

First the session started with a delay of almost two hours. At the outset of proceedings, Deputy Speaker Zahid Durrani, who was chairing, gave the floor to Abdul Akbar Chitrali.

Chitrali expressed serious concerns over the inactiveness of the parliament due to the least interest of the treasury members. He regretted that he raised two very important issues through Calling Attention Notice (CAN) consecutively in previous two sessions of the house but received no answers from the relevant ministers which, he added, was a highly condemnable act as well as insult of this august house.

“Hence, I call for a lack of quorum in the house,” he said. On which, the asked for count and the house found not having the required number of the parliamentarians. The chair then announced the adjournment of the house till Friday at 10:30 am.

Such laxity absenteeism was observed in the last three sessions of the house. A previous session was also forced by the chair to adjourn even without completing the question hour. Also during the last session, most of the key cabinet ministers and other members were absent. Some Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) members showed serious reservations over non-receipt of replies of a number of questions and absence of ministers. On which, the chair had issued a ruling and urged ministers and senior officials of the ministries to ensure their presence during the house proceedings.

The Deputy Speaker directed the staff to provide him the attendance of government officials on a daily basis. He claimed that he would not allow the house to be run on the pattern of the previous three years under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

Likewise, the ongoing session of the lower house, which began on May 10, the small opposition group present in the assembly had been successful in disrupting the proceedings by pointing out the quorum issue.

This is the first regular session of the after the coalition government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took office last month and both Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and his deputy have been struggling to keep parliament functional in the wake of mass resignations of 123 PTI members following the success of the no-confidence resolution against Imran Khan.

The speaker, who has yet to begin the process of verification of resignations of PTI members, has been running the house by allowing members to deliver lengthy speeches and speak on issues of their choice on points of order without caring for the agenda items. Taking advantage of the situation, the members have adopted a new strategy of getting the floor after threatening that otherwise, they will point out quorum. Furthermore, nomination of the new opposition leader has also been delayed for which is rendering the house incomplete.