Daily Times

Minister for Economic Affairs Sardar Ayaz Sadiq Monday termed the second time rejection of the Election (Amendment) EVM/OP Bill, 2022 by President Dr Arif Alvi “regretful and failure to abide by the constitutional obligations.”

Speaking in the National Assembly, Ayaz condemned President Alvi’s move, saying he was president of the country and instead of taking dictation of his party chief, he should act impartially as per the constitution.

Ayaz said the president was bound to follow the Constitution but he thoroughly failed and sent the bills back twice. “Although the bills would be taken as approved legislation automatically as per the prescribed laws, it would have been good if Dr Alvi had put himself with the Constitution instead of his party,” he maintained. Ayaz recalled that Dr Alvi was part of all these 117 meetings that had been held during his party’s tenure in joint consultations with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and all other stakeholders. After all deliberations, it would have been declared that it was still difficult to implement the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and give access to the overseas Pakistanis to vote in upcoming general elections.

Speaking on a point of order, Nawab Sher Waseem said despite being an agricultural country, Pakistan was facing many crises. “The costly agricultural commodities are one issue but in spite of that it is not available which would highly dent farmers who are already economically suppressed,” he stated. Nawab Yousaf Talpur seconded the aforementioned points and said the country could not develop unless it formulated some comprehensive policies to boost the agriculture sector.

Responding to the points raised, Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said although domestic supplies were there, ships carrying fertilizers from China will soon reach Pakistan to fulfill the needs.

He informed the house that the government was taking all possible measures to ensure availability of fertilizers in sufficient quantities to facilitate the farmers.

He claimed that the government was exploring all available options to ensure availability of fertilizers.

He said tracking devices will be fitted in all the trucks carrying fertilizers and wheat to check smuggling of the commodities.

He said geo-tagging of bags of fertilizers and wheat was also on the cards to prevent their smuggling.