PPP lawmakers staged a walkout in the National Assembly (NA) on Thursday in protest of the continued “insulting” absence of federal ministers from proceedings.

Lawmakers in both houses of parliament had expressed outrage last week over the continued absence of the ministers as Deputy Speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah termed it a “disgrace” to the parliament and dec­lared that they would not hold NA proceedings if the ministers would not be present in the house. Shah had also announced that they would write a letter to the prime minister to apprise him about the situation.

A similar scenario had unfolded in the Senate where Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani had to defer several agenda items due to the ministers’ absence.

Unmoved over the criticism on them, the ministers had spent a busy day in various activities outside parliament throughout the day which was evident from the press releases issued by the media managers of their respective ministries to the newspapers and TV channels, requesting them to give prominent coverage.

The same situation was no different in today’s NA session with only Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar present among the treasury benches from the federal ministers during question hour.

The first of many, PPP MNA Asad Niazi pointed the above out, lamenting that it was “unfortunate” that only Tarar was present to answer questions.

Later, PPP lawmaker Naveed Qamar lashed out: “The problem is that do they (secretaries and advisers) only come here to complete their attendance? That they give any illogical response and then say [the question] has passed and we should move on.

“You have given the ministers a blank cheque that there is no need for them to come because parliamentary secretaries are present and they are equal to a minister. This is not the way that you should run the assembly.”

Disparaging the responses from the parliamentary secretaries to questions asked so far, Qamar said it was “insulting to sit in a house where we get these kinds of answers”.

Praising the responses from some of the secretaries, he said others were “not properly briefed and have no clue about the subject and you accept that as an answer? I fail to understand how we are going to enhance the stature of this house.

“They are supposed to be answerable to this house. They are not supposed to go through the motions of being answerable to this house. There is a difference and this is for the chair to regulate,” he said.

Qamar said if the NA would continue to be managed in such a manner then the PPP lawmakers could not be part of it.

Assuaging his concerns, Shah said the prime minister was alerted about the issue regarding the presence of ministers after which the situation had improved somewhat but returned to the same state today.

Subsequently, PPP MNA Nafisa Shah asked a question regarding exports and as Commerce Secretary Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti began addressing it, PPP lawmakers staged a walkout with Syed Agha Rafiullah saying: “Sir this government will not continue.”

PML-N lawmaker Hanif Abbasi was also seen joining the walkout with the PPP MNAs.