ISLAMABAD: The con­­tinued absence of the ministers once again marred the National Assembly proceedings on Thursday, prompting members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a key partner in the ruling coalition, to stage a token walkout to register their protest as Deputy Speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah expressed his total helplessness in the matter.

After deferring a couple of agenda items due to the ministers’ absence, Mr Shah read out the prorogation order of Presi­dent Asif Zardari, thus announ­cing the end of the assembly’s winter session a day before the agreed schedule.

“If this is the way to run this house, we can’t be a part of it,” declared PPP’s veteran parliamentarian from Hyderabad Syed Naveed Qamar while leading his party colleagues out of the assembly hall after expressing his anger over the ministers’ ab­­sence from the proceedings.

“We find it insulting to sit in the house where we get these kinds of answers,” said Mr Qamar while protesting over the deputy chairman’s act of allowing parliamentary secretaries to respond to the questions on behalf of the absent ministers and ministers of state.

“You [the chair] have given the ministers a blank cheque that there is no need for them to come [to the house] because parliamentary secretaries are present and they are equal to a minister. This is not the way that you should run the assembly,” declared Mr Qamar when the members expressed their dissatisfaction over a reply given by the parliamentary secretary for commerce, Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti, during Question Hour.

Mr Bhatti had informed the house that he had been given the responsibility to answer the questions as the minister was accompanying the prime minister during his official visit to Egypt.

“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,” Mr Qamar said.

He added that some parliamentary secretaries were “not properly briefed and have no clue about the subject” while answering the questions of the members.

“You [the chair] accept that as an answer? I fail to understand how we are going to enhance the stature of this house,” he said.

The deputy speaker said that he had written a letter to the prime minister on the issue of the ministers’ absence.

He said the situation had improved somewhat following his letter but returned to the same state. He said that the ministers should spare some time to attend the house proceedings.

Hanif Abbasi, a PML-N member from Rawalpindi, also joined the protesting PPP members in registering his protest.

Interestingly, the opposition members belonging to the PTI remained seated in the house even though Opposition Leader Omar Ayub Khan had announced on the floor of the assembly on Wednesday that they would not participate in the assembly proceedings till the release of party’s founding chairman Imran Khan and other workers.

Before going out, a PPP lawmaker from Karachi, Agha Rafiullah, taunted PTI members, asking them to play the role of the opposition.

When PPP MNAs were on their way out, PTI’s Nisar Jatt was heard teasing the PPP members by asking them to make a clear decision whether they were in the government or the opposition.

A protest by some PPP lawmakers led by Ramesh Lal in front of the speaker’s dais over the non-release of development funds to the minority members was another highlight of an otherwise dull sitting.

The protesting PPP members carrying some placards, however, returned to their seats on the instruction of Mr Shah, who termed this gathering a violation of the assembly rules.

This was not the first time that the absence of ministers disrupted the National Assembly proceedings during the current session, which had begun on Dec 10.

During almost all the past sittings, the deputy chairman expressed frustration and helplessness in this regard, and in one of the sittings, he had even termed it a “disgrace” to the parliament and warned that if ministers did not attend the session, the House proceedings would not continue.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2024