PA okays Rs 87.436b supplementary budget

Rejecting the opposition’s cut motions, the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday approved a massive Rs 87.436 billion supplementary budget for 2010-11 by majority, approving 41 demands for grants as it did so.
Only three cut motions were submitted by opposition members against the excessive expenditure of the Punjab government during fiscal year 2010-11 under relief, police and miscellaneous heads of account.
Opposition legislators Chaudhry Zaheeruddin, Sardar Mohsin Leghari, Semal Kamran, Amir Sultan Cheema, Rai Shahjahan Kharal and Syed Hassan Murtaza protested against the spending under the mentioned heads and criticised the government for utilising large amounts of fund of the province without getting a prior approval from the Punjab Assembly.
Law and order: PML-Q’s Zaheer said it was disgusting to approve hefty amounts for the police department at a time when the law and order was at its worst.
He said the crime ratio was rising each passing day but the Punjab government was disbursing millions of rupees among incompetent security personnel. He said police officials who scarified their life in the line of their duty were admirable, but there was a dire need of launching clean up operations in the police department to root out corrupt officials.
Responding to the objections raised by the opposition, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said 98 percent incidents of abduction for ransom related to terrorism and the criminals involved in the crime were usually traced back to the Tribal Areas, where criminal nurseries had been working under the guise of jihad.
He said military dictators were responsible for the growth of these terrorist hatcheries, adding that all dictators must be brought to justice.
The law minister added that directions had been issued to release the flood inquiry report on the official website of the Punjab government.
Claim to fame: Earlier, the House once again turned saw a ruckus when PPP Opposition Leader Raja Riaz said on a point of order that Azad Jammu and Kashmir election results had exposed the claims of the PML-N of having massive public support, as the public had mostly rejected the party. He said N-leaguers were in trouble and had no way to come out of the situation.
“This was just a trailer, the complete movie would be shown in the next general election,” he said.
Riaz said the PML-N had utterly failed in Punjab and popularity graph would fall further. “The PML-N leadership ran amok for its lust of power and time is not far when they will be out of power even in Punjab,” he said.
He lamented that “unscrupulous elements” were hell bent on “finishing” the Punjab Assembly, but “we will foil any such move with the support of masses”.
Riaz said the PPP was a popular party and its leaders had made it invincible by sacrificing their life.
The opposition leader added that the PPP had emerged as the single largest party in the AJK polls and hoped it would form government independently.
However, he said, other political parties would also be invited to join the government as coalition partners.
Punjab Food Minister Abdul Ghafoor responded to Riaz’s speech, alleging that the PPP polled 7,000 fake votes in a single constituency. Upon this, opposition lawmakers resorted to deafening booing and sloganeering.
Rana Arshad criticised the PPP’s policies, saying it were the biased policies of the federal government that forced its coalition partner MQM to part ways with the government.
During Arshad’s speech both treasury and opposition members raised a hue and cry, forcing the PA speaker to ask for a head phone. The speaker did try to control the situation, but the MPAs from both sides remained busy in mud slinging at each other. During Tuesday’s session, the Punjab Assembly also approved leaves of 25 members who could not attend the session owing to various reasons.
These legislators include the ones who changed their affiliations and have not attended the assembly sessions for the last several months. After the approval of supplementary budget, the NA speaker prorogued the House.